was walking down 3rd street after
another 13 hr. Med. Center shift to pick
up an energy drink so I’d finally wake
early enough to do a twentyish mile run
in prep for an overnight fifty-mile race,
and looking out at this july mid-sized middle
American city in all its beauty and in all its
horrors and watching many of its people
(perhaps even myself) flourish.

“Oh, Emily…Come back.”

then, the sudden twist in thought stepping up
the curb to that battered Family Dollar walkway,
the languor in seeing there’s only so many ways
silence
can speak back to you and I’m certain
I’ve exhausted all of them. And yet:

“Just…Come back into my life.”