Like the flesh itself,
they are places of coming and going.

Before it closed its doors,
the warehouse on McTavish

bore alphabetic scars
up and down its walls,

vine traces like graffiti
praising sun and rain,

odes to slow ascents
of dusty brick that breathed

highway fumes before
the building was reborn

as Richard’s Gentlemen’s Club
in whose parking lot

tough old vines spread their legs
to strangle a chain-link fence,

for nothing more than pleasure,
you might think, if

by pleasure you mean simply
trying to stay alive.