Dreaming of Newark

Looking for his cookies on
roads, abandoned lots of weed and
cracked concrete in Newark, NJ
as we carried ourselves to
some class no one knew
Svyatoslav crouched and hunched
running behind our group
appearing from nowhere,
everywhere, leaping down hills
disappearing into alleyways
like a phantom from the painting,
he offered me his finding, crumbled
chocolate baked and lost,
Vitaly pushed them onto everyone
else, "Take a cookie! C'mon!"
no one took a bite,

In the house now we'd made it
small two rooms and not the
kind of place for a school,
tho everyone we knew was there,

"You got Heckenberg?"

"Yeah," we told them,
Whit was there too,

We worried he'd be confused
living in two houses at once,
traveling to Jersey for class,
I hugged him against my knee

Joe and Svyatoslav watched silently
munching away on the cookies,

Again Whit was so small.