Poem’s Rehab

not many readers
left like antibodies and the town
has the shakes
and this empty space where
it was before returns

poem is leaving town
leaving the collective
the addictive system
where positions remain
without people

rivers continue to run
underneath the street and
if left to, would sluice out
again taking away the parking
meters and sandwich shops

Poem has doubts on how
the drugs have affected memory
function and sensory
calmness can be settling
and unnerving

Poem shirks the narrative
bridle freed from the need
to make coherent boundaries
between what is known

Poem repeats names, ponders
parts of speech, finds the city
doesn’t meet any of the lives