Miles away in a different life,
I was spared the demolition,
the transformation of what was home
into a drab machine shop.
Its ghost still floats in pieces
through my memory, the relics
dancing in a jumble, but the feeling
of it flutters in my breath.
To be safe, to be known,
to have a place in the seas of the city
with its raging tide of traffic,
its sleepless lights and hooting trains.
The aura of that comfort never dies
but persists like a shadow to my life,
a presence inviolate, beyond the crush
of bulldozers, the heartless erasure.