Ralph Angel
Falling behind, I was trying to hold on
to a stray branch stuck in the grass, a crowd of
bathrobes in a driveway, a missing gatepost
to
alter the day, making it bearable. But as I drew closer
their difference loosely spread
through neutral streets, gray Autumn, the way
ground fog or sadness gathers this city-
cold around the edges seeping in like rain through sleep.
People go on. Countless footsteps
pass through car doors, wind up stairs and arrive
at far corners right on time. The victories there:
conversation. The calm strangers. The most available identity.
I couldn't know what doesn't change must be done
over and over again. I was thinking hard, chipping away
at my heart, unattaching a string of
birds from the wires, and disregarding them.
Each sound and nerve-end
gives in to the dull sirens supporting the distance,
sounds in a memory without the memory's story.
The sighing, indecisive breeze
accumulates in the grave that was opened the day I was born .
Fir trees wander through the afternoon.
I was catching up with myself. Here's the newspaper,
the packets of Kasseri and Feta.
There's the drugstore's clean tiles, the
J
&
M cardroom,
the butcher's red flag. I was watching the woman
who snagged her sweater on the table.
I wanted to leave. I was already letting go.
