The bare unspoken shoves
contis for a crusty circle
are no surprise,
stubborn salty barges
and the advance of pikes and bullets on the vesuvian crescent,
by conquerors to pale square stone mimicry of times past,

have innoculated
these ancients against trappings
often bought, and smothered sympathy for strangers.

But as my digits fail to grab
my cup of caffeinated lightning from the din of
a machine, I'm startled by a turn upward in strange eyes,
a hint of sympathy amidst their contempt.

Assuredly aimed, my mind
solitary sloshes through mud, I can't stop plunging through
epistles shoved further into archival, alienated by street song and drawn in spite of better instincts instead to the insipid self important whining of oakrim-bespectacled venue troubadors on your, opposite edge of the sea. When least expected,

Understanding shoves its unexpected blessings
as I cobblestone my blistered feet through
streets sheltered by mad drivers,
between confessors and prepubescent brigands zooming
and transgressors crossing hearts
by battered gilded bastions of a
levantine giant, porched by shrines.

The saddest clarity:
your terminally early shoves and
corrective epistles,
posted to strangers sudden burning
stronger, so unlike me and

our gentle embrace and my own begging,
my canine prostration
and your delayed,
distant declarations of concern.