This Town Has Changed
This town has changed: these streets I know so well
Have turned into a maze of secret runs
Through which my labyrinthine thoughts impel
Me, moving swiftly, like a thief who shuns
All contact, even with his kind, and looking
To neither right nor left, and never back,
Pursues his secret, tortuous path, not brooking
Interruptions which might mark the track
Which every day is different, darker, longer,
More intricate and cunning, and which leads,
With an insistence that grows daily stronger,
To the forbidden thing he knows he needs,
A stolen bird clutched in his trembling fist,
Singing for all to hear the place of tryst.
By Jonathan Steffen.
This Town Has Changed is published in St. Francis in the Slaughter-House and Other Poems, Falcon Editions 2006. It will appear also in Exposure, Falcon Editions 2012 (publication date: 1 September 2012)
Image by Camelia Burn
