I remember the road
past the dolomitic points
of the town cemetery.
How they’d put the tents up
as wasps gorged themselves
on prelapsarian leafery.
How the professors
were drunk
on theatrical fog.
Mostly, I was doing this —
walking along the highway
or football field
at night, climbing out
the third-floor printer room
window. I was after portals:
I found the secret panel
in the Petrarch room
revealing a society of climbers.
They scaled sandstone dorms
while everyone else slept
under the watchful eye
of the astronomy PhDs.
I found the abandoned library
in the courtyard, which opened
to the turn of my wrist.
I found the cassette
in the preserved lounge
distributed by the Clock Tower
Sacred Belt Society. My friend,
I’ve spent all night
on street view, walking
to your stone window. 

is from Chicago and lives in New York City. She works at New York Magazine, and graduated from New York University’s MFA program in poetry, where she was a Goldwater Fellow.