Roark Drive, CA

Giulia Gudor

Although I’ve never walked the streets of Alameda Bay,

I know that blood-stained corner:

the one where dead roses lay.

We could hear something play:

It was the radio next door,

I got to, got to, gotta take it slow.

You told me Mexico was waiting

through the lyrics of the ‘93 B-side track

while your arm was on the upper bout

of your boat-worn childhood axe.

Two hundred seventy-nine days

since I saw the freckles in your blue eyes,

and only thirty-one have passed

since you reminded me of what lives on your mind.

In your bedside table I am still pursued:

the remnants of my scent upon

the billets-doux.

You played three songs, said:

“I made them about…

…I never truly stopped loving you.”

Your words dragged me back into reckoning,

to Pier Forty-One where you said:

“Do you really think if I told you what I did,
you’d trust me just like you did from the start?”

It’s where my love for you has died

although I’ve never walked the streets of Alameda Bay.

On the corner where Roark meets Midwickell Drive

is the blood-stained ground where my dead roses remain.