Fringe Of Shadows!!
living in the shadows, walking the edges of life—
always the fringe,
where neon drowns slow in rain
and names abrade to lint in a pocket.
I parse the grammar of alleys,
how silence declines,
how a siren pulls distance taut as wire.
I am the blur between frame and film,
the click before the shutter sins,
a heartbeat cupped like a match in wind.
some nights the city misplaces its face.
I rent it by the minute—
bright for a window’s breadth,
gone at the corner’s mouth.
if there’s a center, it hoards its weather.
I keep the margins:
small fires, quick exits,
a pencil map that lies kindly—
smudged, forgiving—still pointing me home.
second movement: pencil atlas
I keep a map that doesn’t swear—
just nods.
corners ringed with coffee,
grease-pencil arrows like quiet jobs: try here. maybe there.
a legend of almosts:
one dot for a doorway I almost crossed,
two for a name I almost said,
three for a window where I was briefly light.
some streets changed their spelling;
fine—language drifts like smoke.
what matters is the thumb-warm seam
that opens to the page I need,
the graphite burnish where I’ve traced the run
so many times it’s practically a prayer.
if the center’s a rumor, let it keep its weather.
my atlas prefers the ash-gray margins—
soft exits, small fires,
and the mercy of pencil lines,
eraser ghosts pacing behind like patient tails
until—look—here we are.
