I brush gently the leaves, and dust
pushing it from the dry black bricks
of my brain, and of the real street –
Its holes, gratings, posts, back alleys

stand in the bright cold above this –
the leaves replenish their yellows
and I breathe, letting life happen
despite it happening loudly –

Under the pavement, centipedes
slip around corners and thin pipes
cupped with silt. And wires web the town.
If you listen here, carefully,

place your ear against the drainpipe
that sinks beneath the street, you hear
like a half-forgotten dream sound
the far off ocean is breathing

and phantom children laughing – us,
but from a lighter, freer time –
the beach reaches both horizons
the one on the sky’s edge, and then

the other – where the wave’s instep
glows green or blue – glass in the sun –
I brush new sand from the black bricks
and then place my hands on the dunes