remember that day, you and I

restlessly still, unpacked

with a case of fooled ambition

the brochure plans still intact

spent, the whole weak, hauling cargo:

imported craft from the Old World

piled neat, in over our heads

excised by customs, taxed and tolled

when we said, “Enough is enough.”

drove a circle around city square

left our belonging for the free-way

and set out for not here nor there

but for a trek East along the river

where the NO-TRESPASS sign-posts roam

(we go where we want to go

  the earth is OUR home)

beyond the broken city limits

and the post-industrial decline

we touched on a more tender landscape

fastened beneath the rust-belt line

where by the pink and purple sky

etched forever in my mind

we atoned for our flawed conception

and embraced in mortal design