LXVII.
Jen says it is stupid to sleep outside when her home
is just down the road. Jen says, I invite you every night
and you say it is the code of the explorer to sleep with
the stars our only canopy. I tell her that this is true,
and that there is even more in the code of the explorer.
Ways to gut a fish, or how to get back from Baltimore.
Jen says the code of the porter demands more carrying,
and places her soft hand before me. It’s true that from up here
I can see the horizon, such as it is. I see Five Below
is having a sale. A storm is brewing, coming from the direction
of the place of kebabs. There are signs and there are,
of course, portents. Jen says look there: blood.
When I look there is only a puddle. Jen says, but you could see
what I was thinking, right? As she opens the door
to the third floor one bedroom palace of a porter, she shrugs off
her coat and sets me on a low table. She says, I thought
there had been an accident. She turns off the light. Far above,
on the ceiling, tiny childish five pointed stars glow softly in the dark.