As I
say the words spray
painted on a subway
station wall “gratitude and grief,”
who knows

why these
tears taste so good,
how the empty car will
warm you overnight in a dream.
No one

owns this
land, the city,
that underground refuge
possesses us to tell it like
it is.

I must
confess the truth:
property will always
confuse me. Here I sit alone
in this

rented
jumble of rooms
inside a century
old building made of bricks and stray
stories

tossed, or
lost, or misplaced.
Truth is I made up that
subway graffiti to reclaim
this year.