Four Seasons

outside kaigan line, the homeless
his home, his card castle stack of
togetherness, a banana box and newspapers
wrapped in plastic bags
protect their owner

a circle of women in heels
boots and flats elevated like saviors
remind themselves they’re together

i grab the smell of lost cities on bus wind

by central, two men strum dreadnoughts and croon
for a moment the coughing tricks me
can’t tell if it’s percussion or infection
zero-degree windbreakers for the jewelry salesmen
who i think hold hands when nobody’s looking

in my hands is a letter from fifteen years ago and
the penpal i never wrote back to, her hopes pinned on
a picture, a collection of cancelled stamps, air mail
par avion. in my hands is only a train ticket

in the hundreds, as we stuff across the street
staying inside the white lines, i am brushed by
everyone i’ll some day miss and can never
come back to

on the departures sign trains pass from memory
from home to destination before they’re forgotten

the cold smell of farm metal on frozen air

on tap this machine pumps hot steel covering
hotter liquid, hundred yen coffees and
i tuck one in my pocket with my freezing hands

he’s gone when i’m back, sometimes, his
card castle standing watch, so impervious somehow
men in taxis standby, heads back, their cigarettes
pumping exhaust idle wait for fares to be put out

you were homeless, tucked into heels
my guitar player, my songspinner
words on paper from germany, behind a lighter, a glass
dots in space, green carpet and orange couches

underground you brush past me, only long enough
to know you’re gone