The Mother of Re-Invention
I bought a small bouquet
of scrawny yellow tiger lilies
from a Chinese woman at the station
at seven p.m. on a Saturday night.
I needed the comfort and the color
without you here, and
she looked like she could use the two dollars.
The Subway Giveth and the Subway Taketh Away
No, no, no, no, NO!
Don’t lay your Metro down on your chest.
I was only beginning
To fully discover
The curve of your black brassiere
As it nestled against your white breast.
* * *
Ah well,
another jewel of a moment
been here and gone like a mayfly.
And anyhow
This is my stop
(Chinatown).
Low Tide
the so-called experts
have no explanation
of how it is that the team
went 6-6 this year
after having won 10 last season.
after all,
they didn’t lose any starters
they didn’t play a tough schedule
and they sure didn’t have many injuries.
but these experts,
well …
they forgot to ask me.
i could’ve told them
how they were her favorites,
how we’d watch them together,
and then
how she left me in April.
tough luck, baby,
you shoulda stuck with me;
your boys would be in the damn Rose Bowl.
The Abortion
You are my big mistake. You are the thing I made when I forgot my upbringing. The thing I thought I loved. Yes, of course I want to erase you; why wouldn’t I? You are the ghost of a misspent year Lived contrary to all I know, All I was taught, right and wrong. Of course you don’t exist, how could you? I say you don’t, so you mustn’t. You don’t see me anymore as I go about my life, Hiding deep inside it, holding my eyes shut. It wasn’t me who said I love you more Than you will ever love me, how could it have been? That long year lying on the ground, having fallen off my high horse (recently rediscovered). That year … I was deceitful. I was a cheat. I shamed my friends and my family. Now I know the error of my ways. You are the error; you are my mistake. Now you must go. Now you are gone. Ghosts don’t remember promises So they couldn’t be lies. How do you remember such things? (This has been a tumbleweed talking to a ghost.)
The Big Curve
The first time I rode into Boylston Street Station
Jan smiled and said: Watch for the big curve.
And I did, but I went flying anyway
Into an old lady’s lap
And we laughed as we passed through the turnstile
Into Jordan’s record department.
She picked out that Jelly Roll Morton
on RCA Victor.
And later we went back to Brighton,
put on Mamie’s Blues,
and made love on her foldaway bed.
“the 2:19 took my baby away
the 2:17 will bring him back some day”
In those days, the wheels screeched
Just like they do
now, and now,
thirty years on,
I think of her
every time we hit that curve . . .
and I think that I’m starting
to learn how to
stay on my feet.
Where I Live
This house is still on fire;
This house is still in flames.
Women carry pails of water
Up from the stream
But this house is still on fire.
Passers-by, concerned,
Cry for help and pull alarms
But this house is still on fire.
Volunteer firefighters
Smash out the windows
But this house is still on fire.
Police surround the place
With yellow caution tape
But this house is still on fire.
This house is still on fire;
This house is still in flames.
This house is still on fire;
This house cannot burn down.
not even raining
Down on Essex Street
the shops are full of Asian girls and I
look in at them through windows hung
with dried fish and ginger . . .
. . . thinkin bout how Blind
Willie McTell had three women:
yellow, black, and brown,
and, hell, he couldn’t even see.
And she holds it high in the air,
bright red with yellow lanterns on it . . .
“That’s a beautiful umbrella
but baby, it’s not even raining –
baby, it’s not even raining.”
Light Percussion
Rain steadily tapping the window,
A small clock by the side of the bed,
A heartbeat — constant, insistent . . .
No pianos or Spanish guitars,
no woodwinds or brass —
no melodies harmonies
orchestras bells
or arrangements . . .
Now that the radio’s
blown its last fuse
I’ve finally found some good music.
Punching In
I could write you a long, long letter, but I
wouldn’t know where to begin and I
wouldn’t know how to end, so
instead I won’t write any letter at all.
Still I look, every day, for some word
from you, anything at all, the smallest hint,
anything I could possibly stretch and contort and construe . . .
It’s a sad, ridiculous way to waste my time, it’s true, but
it’s something I feel I’m obliged to do —
like walking down to the factory every morning
and punching my time card, even though
I don’t work there anymore; haven’t for over six years.
“Tails”
Bright and dying like autumn leaves,
Let the wind take me
To Birmingham
(or Buenos Aires).
Sparrows sing, but I fly past them.
I’m free now, and tomorrow
I’ll return
Your turquoise pendant.
I dreamed I saw a penny underwater.
And when I awoke you asked me was it
Heads or tails; “Tails,” and you said,
“Baby, that’s bad luck.”
Bad, indeed; now you’ve returned to him –
His quarts of gin, pitch-
black rooms and
Collection of knives.
He needs you more than I do;
Sparrow, fly away home.
One day I’ll pass right on by you –
Look up into the wind sometimes.
