Milk Route

Even if I am somewhere, I am wishing for there:
that sway of life through a torn-down town, charred
& dripping bones of a rumor on Cherry Street in the dark
of the first trumpeted Thursday, the end of summer.

Some places become homes by habit. This accidental habit.
I am predisposed to long always for a stillness I cannot attain.
I am never anywhere but wishing & I tighten my train whistle
crown & I know which light takes longest on Kellogg. I know

what it is to stand dwarfed by a city of hot air balloons
on the cusp of goodbye, which is agony, which is not goodbye
except in waking. One morning I’d stayed up all night.
One morning I’d heard poem after poem after poem.

Someday I will be somewhere, & I hope it is there.
Someday I will become the fog on its cat feet, this habit.

Carly Madison Taylor is a poet, songwriter, painter, and essayist living in Buffalo, NY. They earned their BA in Creative Writing and Dance Studies from Knox College in 2016. They serve as Art Editor for Variant Lit. More of their work can be found at Poke, Crêpe & Penn, Boston Accent Lit, and elsewhere. They’re on Twitter @carma_t and Instagram @car_ma_t.