Sunday, August 28, 2016

Iowan reflections

It is too early to confess
but I know something has closed
a door, a chance, an end I cannot tell yet

I walk in this city without giving any attention
to the fact that my body matches the cracks
of the pavement:it is tiny and needs maintenance

the wind is pregnant with mist and moist
mosquitoes and a sense of misfits
a march together clothed in yellow-and-black-T shirts

I cannot read the directions here
everything is straight and full
yet nothing is even

not even the myths of the streets: a blue eyed stranger,
the passport burner, preaches his own death to reach God,
 yet awes over the karats in my rosary

the street, whose name I never heard
teems with tarot readers, toddlers and tears
it rains as often as I cry: unwillingly, without expectation

I do not want to talk of other cities here,
the way my body
melted and was remade by the faces of others, elsewhere

it changes here and with words
a sharp edge of a knife that stubs me
as I kiss it, this literature, this desire, this madness

at loss next to the Iowa river I note
my grief in you is now two and a half years old
if it was a boy, it would be calling your name

but I won't tell you and I do not confess to the river
my ability to fall hard
without breaking any bones.


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