A special symbol on the map, out of scale, big house, 
marking where romance suddenly became historic, 
where my hand slid slowly along your arm, 
thumb perched as a bird on the wrist, 
and fingers scratched light and urgent on the palm.

Now, forever, that's what should happen again in the world, 
that place, that feeling. We search the map by flashlight. 
Wrong turn. What was it about music spreading like March rain
over stubbled fields that made the world green
with want and possibility? Radio voice, 
sneering across the airwaves, just next door, 
just half a sigh away, breath beneath, 
familiar hiss of need and pause and pause.

There, a body with attitude, curling like a garden trail. 
Elvis marked like landscape or statue on the town square, 
razor-cut features not yet faded to butter. 
Body of wood, iron, the care a tender hand carves 
into moist stone. All raised around a reference, 
round a spot well­known and loved but oh so distant 
from the gesture, a place we can visit
with the family, gaudy and disappointingly safe. 

Pole where the dog is tethered, path scored circular
in dirt, such a din! Husky sound echoing along the rail, 
what did we call that song? That song we believed, 
that song we squeezed so tight it cracked. 
song which held the movie where we could be the stars. 
We don't expect it all. We're tourists of desire, not natives. 
Because the place is vandalized, it feels so much like home.