Oh, subtle city sitting 

along the curves of places

others fly over, without suggestion,

this ode is for you,

for the kindness your people show.

Others stop for food, which seems

reason enough to settle here,

but we sought answers to questions

that we didn’t have the voice or words to ask yet.

Almost every person we distressed

with our presence over weeks and weeks

possessed answers to our fumbled queries—

even if those answers displeased

several senses of decency.

Surely others see the treasure stoppered here 

and its propensity to surprise,

so many memories with friends

sewn together around work and around 

the chance we will not be here next year. 

The most sorrowful sound to hear

is the whisper of the word elsewhere

thrown into the quandary of trusted specters

already so tenuously built on speculations.