The once familiar always convenient
and never too expensive supermarket
had its sliding glass doors slide
shut forever now the aisles
run in parallel course toward
the wrecking ball
while just across Osborn a letter
is missing from the SUPERST R sign
that survived the fire that took the store
including its stock of rental movies
from comedies along the east wall
to those in the screened off section set
aside for adults. Meanwhile,
the rehab building on Seventh Avenue
where a man once lay face down
after being stabbed in the back
is pale and empty but for echoes
trapped inside from lonely cries for help
with just the shadow remaining
of the woman who left the premises
calling out I might just cut somebody’s throat
so don’t let people near me
please sir as she carried her little dog over
the crosswalk on red toward
what used to be a restaurant and was
a different restaurant before that
and so on all the way
back to when this was desert
and change came as heat breaking open
to release a flood that swept
whatever lay in its path
away into the time
language was the sky speaking
and only had a present tense.