Invisible City

"You won't find another country, won't find another shore....
there's no ship for you, there's no road."
                                                                                      ~ C.P. Cavafy


Like most things in life, I learned this
too the hard way. I also left— pursuing 
a myth that yielded no streets of gold, no 
green-leafed money trees, no saints 
smiling at the end of a hard shift, handing out
paychecks like halos. I too, traded one city 
for another, then another. Was called traitor, 
ungrateful for the canopy my first home 
provided, though rain coursed down the walls 
like waterfalls. Was accused of wanting more 
than someone like me should desire. And yet 
I'm always asked: when do you think you'll 
be back? I used to have nightmares 
that the roof over our heads was caving in,
or that the next wind would claw at its corners
and peel it back, revealing how we slept 
without clothes, or how we squatted 
at the table to eat. Now there's nothing
there save a mile marker, a taxi stand,
a transient house, an internet café.
The only thing left is feeling, and faded
furniture on a faded rug; portraits of
unknown presidents glimmering 
from what would have been walls.