You walked with me along the wall, we carved our names in the trunk of an oak, ran around the lake and caught an S-bahn home.
When I think now, those walls, tremors of sounds not kept out, sounds of industry, capital, flamethrowers from the roof.
Now that etched tree, bulges our names crusted skin growing over the gash, our initials, the business end of an arrow.
When I walk it now, the lake, lives lost, swimming over rusted helmets I catch the train home, no longer on time.
Sweet caution, then-etched solidarity comes in the guise of painted curbs, clear markings on national roads, husbanded avenues, the regeneration of more than oak.
At night, we raise them on our backs, run rampant, cells catch us off guard, assist us drowning in mud,
After nightfall, you hear the distant motorway, call of loons.