Poet
ry

They gilded the corner before they gilded the frame,

so I wore the sun like a secondhand chain.

Every bulb behind me is a small dead star

that agreed to burn twice — once for the block,

once for the boy who kept his hunger in meter.

Rome fell asleep on a bus bench in Hollywood.

Its columns became fire escapes,

its choirs became sirens holding one long note.

I read the graffiti like a psalm

and the psalm read me back.

A god with rent is still a god.

I keep the lightning folded in a drawer

next to the receipts and my mother's handwriting.

Some nights I take it out just to see the room —

and the room, forgiving, takes me back.

We paint on hoodies because the ceilings are locked.

We sculpt in cadence, we fresco in flash.

Give a block a language and it builds a cathedral

out of whatever the city left unguarded.