Big Empty
clay waters

My memory is a virus,
emptying the streets
of my beautiful ruin:
churches cleaned of belief
monuments to heroes, safely deceased
palimpsests scrubbed of significance.

Knowing which side streets
hold the longest shadows
I walk with immunity,
post-pandemic,
all fevers tamed for good
escaped from the grasp of others
on invisible crutches.

only, at certain turns,
a subterranean breach
is betrayed by a breeze,
conjuring that redolence,
imperfectly suppressed,
that sends me to my knees.