scratched up

Scratched up by scores of boot-clad feet

scribbling first drafts on a blank sheet,

grey cobbles line the bookshop row,

constant reminders of the north, its misty glow,

of other shores, the planks of scaffolds,

of clay that lies beneath and of the mud on boards,

and of the memory of you, running, heels clicking,

down that scaffolding—to an unarmed mind

it seems unfathomable now, but your eye

unaided, will see just how the mind can fly

past reason, when in the east the sun's already set

while here it still shines bright... And yet,

already covered with my scribbling,

like thawing skating rinks in spring,

those foreign trampled cobblestones

are fated to become drafts of my poems.