The echoes play with their vowels
here—bouncing carelessly off
the long corridor I will call home.

My shoulders have a dull ache in them
as if travel resists my change. This
life is meant to be broken, lost.

The day grows longer and still
I feel I am shrinking. I beg the birds,
these new sparrows, to teach me.

Tilt your head, shave your legs
they chirp at me. How come reincarnation
isn’t always a repeat but a recasting?

I sigh heavy as a cat’s walk, my body
heaves naked on the hardwood floor.
This is before you make friends with the city.

Dan Nowak