Maps

What was there back then?
Saw dust on a concrete floor,
Work boots in the closet,
A rope tied to a maple tree,
And a pink corner-room.

And now, what is different?
The Golden Country shivers
In the cold light of morning,
And it's always moving ahead,
Moving parts - out of reach.

The City isn't perfect,
But its concrete is honest,
It won't change at night.
Here I have a name and a place-
There is a pattern to these pictures.

On a clear day (perfectly clear)
I can see the white sunken edge
of the lake - motionless, a cosmic mirror,
Behind an entire city folding in on itself.
While the Golden Country shivers, asleep.

And I see the concrete floor too,
The pink room, the saw dust,
Blood clinging to a school-yard fence-
They're all planned somewhere,
All laid out like school clothes.

What are these shapes? Tall bodies,
White silhouettes, only air - that's everything.
All that is real are these pictures,
The saw dust, the work boots, the concrete room,
Pictures that appear to me like specters I can touch.