Castle Rose
My friends all think their apartments
used to be brothels. I don’t think
any of them ever were, but it’s a fitting mythology
for an eerie, rundown place with the original mahoganies,
hex tiles, and claw-foots. Sex is a place for ghosts. Sex, cities,
specialty markets with vacant glass fish counters, gilded
wine bars shut with the dissipation of frivolity
that necessitates a gilded wine bar.
It’s the Fourth of July. The city is empty.
Stoplights change.