To believe a city’s breathing
can awaken prairie grass,
to know a river
did not freeze
behind her, to inspect
high clouds in search
of an old lover’s
face (any one would do)
is to be
more than a witness
to these strange days,
stranger nights.
The crumbs
she brushes off
the table will become
the place
she dreams
of reaching by train
before civil dawn. And
the rhythm
she feels
will overpower anything
any one
of us might hear.
More than the foot I broke
outside Van Cortlandt Park.
And the friends
and family and
strangers who visited
me up there. To be at the end
of the line
at night and first
on the train the next
morning, to be safely wedged
northwest, to be rich
in two hours’ worth of rhythmic
thought each day is
to be more than the sum
of 160 steps up.
And under glass: Clifford,
the Blind Fairy, Green
Eggs and Ham, Corduroy,
Celia and the Sweet,
Sweet Water, Elsie
Times Eight, and so on
across the plane
of a table top. Hard
cover nonfiction
for legs. I see no reference
books recycled into rocking
chair runners. No poetry
collection lamp stands. But
with eyes closed
anything can be.
The flight across pre-spring
parkland on a hot March
morning, or the sinking
to the bottom
of the Atlantic. Pinging
back and forth between
ocean and river, bicycle
wheel and open
window won’t revive
verbs that prefer
to remain dead.
She opens the cupboard to run
her fingers along those tin
canisters
of sleep. Which one
tonight? Where
does she want to go? Who
does she want
to encounter in her nightgown
in the rain? And those questions
she won’t ask: Why
don’t scandals have names
like hurricanes? Monosyllabic
male names: Jon, Jay,
Bill, Mike, Dirk, Al, Zeus,
Jim, Dick. No doubt
about it—her dreams bend
genres and tend to leak
if tipped too far forward.
I’m no longer
a Manhattan with rye,
the suit with one sugar cube, or
the skirt
garnished with a cherry. I’m no longer
eligible to mix
it up on the East Coast. But
visits taken black
filled to the brim
still carry me home.
Packed into a cardboard box
with ly’s dangling
from gaps between
the flaps. I’m done with action
that can’t justify
itself. If an escalator squeaks,
let it squeak. If a cat scratches,
let it. If the box
gets returned to sender
because exile has no zipcode,
let it sit on the stoop
till I’m ready
to unpack it—slowly
cutting off those letters first.
