It wasn't clear in which room the photos were stored,
or did the apartment exist at all.

The street you barely saw from three stories above,
and in the blink of an eye it's all gone, leaving
behind
a feeling that something existed here once, like the
wind
tearing through clotheslines, like the rumble from
somewhere above.

One can only imagine the trusses,
supports creating a crosshatch of lights
and darks, striating the morning gloom;
the same sunlight slicing through
dust-bleached windows overlooking the El tracks.

So history constantly shifts
and then we don't know where we are anymore.
And still the district extends, deeper and deeper
into the dream of everyday life.
The smash of domino, a car backfires, childish pranks,
the clip-clopping of horses on cobblestone,
all candy and cigarettes, ticket stubs,
the make-believe ballroom on Webster Ave.

But I'm ahead of myself.
I'd have to go back to see if such-and-such a street
still exists,
if someone kept records, if in going a little too far
in one direction, I'd find my way back to Rose Hill
Park.

Memory transformed into fireflies
and faces remain recognizable for that one instant
before the lights turn out and the neon takes over,
casting its glow on the sidewalk.

A door opens far down in the hall
and a very old lady appears in a faded housedress
and one wakes up and everything seems ordinary again.