I Should Have Never Come

I walk on streets a thousand miles from home.
The paths are crooked and cobbled, a spate
has now caked the fallen leaves where I roam.

The earth so shallow breathes beneath my gait--
I swear the sidewalk hollows then swells,
like when a woman’s chest heaves in lust late

at night, as the train bays wild and sex smells
of husked corn steaming in a base Chicago loft.
These streets I walk alone, here my mind dwells

on father, who every morning steps soft
and hushed to the room that is mine no more,
standing still to not wake mother, eyes aloft

praying. I’ve seen that look of father’s before
when I was smoking on our porch the night
I left. He was quietly by the screen door,

signing the cross with a gesture so slight
amidst love I owe but have yet to pay.
But I kept on staring at the traffic light

flashing red above a road down a ways,
still pounding red as I walk these streets astray.