Day Two

Title: I dream about dreaming about you

When I first moved to Pittsburgh, I spent the first three months losing my way. The city is one of the most difficult to navigate. Hills everywhere, one way streets, rivers, bridges. I got used to it eventually, but somehow, the changing of the seasons always seemed to disorient me again. I was never quite able to draw a map of Pittsburgh in my head, so I navigated by certain trees or buildings or sidewalks. Those changed with the season.

At the same time that I was learning Pittsburgh's streets, I was coming to terms with the ending of a long relationship. The two became inextricably linked in my mind.

***

The Penn Avenue Way Home

I am driving Liberty Avenue,
hoping I’ll find Penn.
All I see are row houses
and bad sidewalks,
leaves stuffed in gutters
and crowded cheap storefronts,
sudden potholes,
and an October-gray sky.

A dream that you have
returned to sender everything
I ever gave you.

I find Penn Avenue
but don’t recognize
anything:
this bridge
this hill
this corner of stores
these sleeping black branches.

You should know by now
that if I am dreaming of you like this
I am sorting something out,
untangling one sad root from another.

I get to Negley Boulevard
and finally see
the Babyland store
that I’ve seen before,
then the Presbyterian cathedral
with the homeless people
out front and the rainbow flag on the corner.
I have been here before.

I dream about
dreaming about you.

It’s at the light on Shady Avenue
in front of the Giant Eagle,
the one I shop at on Sundays,
that I remember
the rest of the way home.