The sign said: TEAR DOWN PARTY this way
and an arrow pointing left.
Everyone was already there.
A forest of figures.
Picked over boxes of pizza.
All my friends were taking
pictures of the walls,
the curl of cracks in the paint.
To keep time in the delaying of it,
I guessed.
“Why are they tearing the building down?”
I kept asking, but nobody
could tell me what.
We drank. A woman in the corner
dancing kept repeating like a bouquet.
The love of my life finally showed up.
He took my face in his hands
and said, “Let me look at you.”
We rushed through hours.
We made a mess of the place.
Then emptied out
into the rising day, walking toward
the vanishing parts of the street.
The whole time I was thinking
of a song whose words I kept forgetting.
Weeks later I’d still be asking myself,
“How did it go?”