Jigsaw Pieces

by Gary Fox

Photo Trolley 15, by Jonene Lee

The lines are a net
catching the clouds like fish –
a bounty of the Allegheny Ave
my parents used to walk with
concrete islands for people
stranded until the next trolley
takes them to where they are
going. If it wasn’t for the Sugar
House sign on the parking garage
I would swear everyone wore thick
framed glasses and the city was
still separated. Maybe it is
I wouldn’t know I am sitting
on my deck on the Eastern Shore
while a V of geese honk from above
staring at my phone at this picture
climbing the steps of memory and illusion
two trolleys sit at Frankford and Delaware
gridlocked for an eternal moment.
Everything is shaded but the meeting point.
The islands of flashing yellow lights
come to me even though they are not
there as if I’m in the back seat of my parents’ car,
the first apartment with my wife
as the lullaby of rushing metal
rolling and sparking the line, the waking
ring of the motor of the car that flipped
off the island with its hood screeching
down Girard Ave, and the rusting steel
of the old sugar plant squatting
between highway and river. So many
memories connect worlds

like “trolley turns” bent inwards
listening to the black and white
between two cars. This is why
I lust for my city even though
I am 8 years separated, a divorce
brought about through marriage.
I still feel like I am cheating
when I walk along the marsh
teasing my lungs with brackish air
searching for a fulcrum point
to hang my fitted while
so many soles of shoes shuffle
on Philly’s cracked sidewalks
I zoom on the instance
shadows and light click.