I could repeat the one
about pretending to be
a tourist in my own town.
I could map a new one
based on a hungover memory
of a lake freighter,
an aerial lift bridge,
and a temper that refused to be

quenched—mine.
I could write
the color red
out of existence,
and the hotel would
still whisper home
to gravity’s
cooled-off night.

It hurts
the ghost.
It laughs
across a ford.
It blinks in unison
with the light
on the broken table.
It will hurt again.

This unnecessary body
balances against
a persistent wind.

The water tower!
Why didn’t I think of it before?

And the sky photobombing above
the way my dead father
would have insisted.