They All Asked About You

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I went down to the city of light,
they all asked about you.
The preachers, the sellers,
the man with pale flowers,
the cops gliding by in their big white cruisers,
they all asked.
The prostitute sighing her continuous sigh,
the girl with one eye bruised,
the children of the cobbled alley,
the postman with his heavy news,
they all asked.
They all asked about you.

I went down to the city of the sea,
they all asked about you.
The mussels and starfish,
the sharks and the barnacles
and the otters in their castles of kelp,
they all asked.
The fishermen winching at their sodden nets,
the women stitching at the shore,
the cold gulls above them, screening the sands,
and the briny things clustered in the scuds of foam,
they all asked.
They all asked about you.

I went down to the city of oblivion,
they all asked about you.
Someone mumbled through an opium haze.
Someone muttered through an alcoholic mist.
They all asked.
The boy lowered his bag of glue
and the crackhead his pipe of dreams.
The needle-freak set down his shivering spike
and a girl let smoke drift from her mouth.
Each addled neuron knew your name.
They all asked.
They all asked about you.

I went down to the city of poets,
they all asked about you.
In iambics and sestinas
and in yawping free verse,
they all rhythmically asked.
There was one who risked all for seven broken lines,
and there was one who stood coughing in an empty tower,
and there was one who built pyramids of abstract syllables,
and there was one whose voice was a broken trumpet.
All of these and a chorus of lyrical Greeks,
they all asked.
They all asked about you.

Then I went down to the city of earth,
they all asked about you.
The ants and the centipedes,
the pill bugs and slugs
chewed out the words with their loamy mouths.
Mute as the mole in their vegetal manner,
they all asked.
Even the dead, in their earthen cathedrals,
lit their dark candles
and chanted for you their continuous psalm.
They all asked.
They all asked about you.