Fragment: Long Island City Spring

by JC Alfier

 

This is what goes on when nothing else will:

       broken memories stepping lightly.



Fissures in April ice. Photos that come loose

       from an album no one views today.



Now the sudden gush of wakefulness —

       insomnia prying open the small hours again.



Take to the streets to see what neon

       has left me. Doesn’t help my slumber return,



but shoves the night fears aside.

       Restive streetlights and pedestrian signals



trigger nothing save ghosts. A drifter

       shouts the name of some missing soul —



a name that travels enough to echo

       into the newborn limbs of locust trees.