i wake from chills fever sweat covering my body full-length like a lover. like the young woman in the black sleeveless dress & sheer blouse last night. but i'm thinking of you, or rather, the girl you used to be 15 years ago in ohio thousands of miles from the foggy coast i've called home for five years. time, it can be a complete installation displayed on shelves & reflecting track-lighting, or it can be the dusty moist glove growing as you caress the fresh lump of spinning clay. funny how it always comes back. a circle, they say, everything is a circle. last night in the Crocodile watching zeke's cd release watching the crowd watching each other. how many bands, cities, bars - i have passed through, & yet you are here the morning after. the flu delirium choking off the layers added to my brain & there you are front & center right at the core. "To those who's need of us endures/Even the knowledge of what we are" is the Phillip Levine quote. we like to think we change, we mature, we develop taste, but then i remember you & know that, yes, you know me much better than the bartender who served me the sprite, much better than the neighbor who went to the show with me, much better than the "old friend" who is leaving town today. we try to make community here we see bands we go to readings we learn new philosophies simultaneously, & still, somewhere near toledo is a woman with two children i have never seen & if i was to lay down on my death bed tomorrow, i would think of the girl she was & noone here.