25 Miles

from Barn Quilt

25 Miles

for Tracy

The town inhabited us. We knew

its rooms, its hidden passageways,

its arcades,

the dual meaning of Keep Out,

the feigned prohibition of the speakeasy,

the contents of the bank.

To know a place is to newly define distance,

fingerprints fade, personal graffiti

conceals, remembrances erode.

When you draw a circle, someone is on the outside,

peering over the circumference.

And then a stranger comes to town.

My father was skeptical.

She wasn’t from around here.