Aubade to Fading City by Jennifer Chance

To dis/appear
to cease
to get so small
that a puddle becomes an ocean
and the ocean becomes a universe

I walk the edges of memory,
dreaming of a car on a highway
with a Beatles song
blazing
and my brother and mother
singing offkey dancing

of Lincoln Square in Carlton
on my first day alone here
the whole city unfolding in the distance
thinking, I can drown here
I can disappear

of a train ride to Flinders
where the window points out
some flaming trees –
there one second then gone,
then gone

of listening to musicians on Elizabeth Street
singing aubades to a dying sky
where they choose, each time,
to dis/appear
into their own melody
to cease time
to get so small
that a puddle becomes an ocean
and the ocean becomes a universe.

From: https://redroomcompany.org/poem/disappearing-public-submissions/aubade-fading-city/

Date: 2021

By: Jennifer Chance (19??- )