“Byron at the End of Poetry”

And, logically, the paper sign must mean that Lord Byron’s

poems refuse to conform to the shelving order, so his work is piled

at the far end of the poetry section in this Bellingham used book shop, 

but–what if–at the end of poetry, there’s Byron?

For a year it was true; walking home from the carpool at the end 

of each poetry workshop in the prison where I interned, it was 

my friend Byron’s voice on the other end of the call. His voice 

painted the Seattle streets like rain.

As we talked, the buses stopped running, and our conversations 

carried me three miles through the night, home. At the end of Hugo 

House poetry readings and long days in the Image Journal basement:

Byron. Byron was the path I walked.

At the end of poetry, we created a city map with layers all merged: 

streets, the water flowing over them through sewers to Sound, topographic 

cut corners, radio waves to cellular towers to cables beneath the earth,

a string of words. Byron, at the end of poetry,

began another poem.