Ten planes exhaled contrails,
painting someone’s property lines
across a sky we thought was ours.

The sun surfaced,
and a checkerboard shadow
carved the city into hundredths
before the lattice loosened
and masked itself as clouds.

Now we walk divided, with memory
imposed upon the moment,
rays wandering a graph of absent shadow,
hoping to sidestep felony
as we move through these
unknowable territories.