and it is now, as it was then—a story
bleeding smoke from half-burned cigarettes
and rainbowed oil puddles that jaywalkers track
leisurely across the street as drivers slam on either
the horn or the brakes, and even aversion
is a kind of violence so you are not surprised
when the street swallows your next step and
the rats tag in red your name on the sewer walls,
and aren’t you grateful, that you too can now be a part
of this memory that they call forgetting?
Candace Williams