The blue dot on the screen is pulsing

The blue dot on the screen is pulsing

in a grid of streets that don't know my name.

On the news, a tractor with a rusted seat

was pulling a flatbed of hay through a square

that looked like the one I left behind.

I remember the Co-op building,

the way the iron rooster on the roof

got bent in the storm of ninety-eight.

It always pointed east, even when the wind

was trying to shove everything west.

Here, the silence is made of five million people

who wouldn't notice if I stopped breathing.

Back there, everyone knew which way the wind blew,

even when the rooster was lying.