AUTUMN SHAPES I-V

I took the torn lace outside, dropped
it in a pot by the train station and looking back
saw it waving at me and knew it will bloom

again, if not for me, for someone else or the boy

eager to leave. We’ll take the cobblestones
until we find our way, but he shook his head.

A red wagon blocked that narrow road. Why, how interesting, I said,

to see what unfolds, how
we can squeeze by, how

they will make it move under magnolia and lilac petals shouting

at the gravel mapping our growling path.

But I understood the draft and the undertow
his sudden change of mood and physical space
the fist and the squeeze, the hard tug, the sudden run

the air left lonely in the air, helpless and less
important again, just useless, trodden down
like a worn staircase where every step, if you look closely,
makes a face.

In the oval park west of the train station
every bench a dark solitary pocket packed
with soft still bodies, sleeping or dead.

Each falling leaf a spark. I touch a woman’s han
and don’t know if she’s just cold or gone.
Darkness surrounds us like a tight skin.
It breaks inside me. Snarling, it wakes me.

I’m up there in the north corner, shady, sheltered
from the light beaming in through the windows.
Erasing words from the blackboard, I look
at the faces of my two students, both young and male

knowing it’s time to leave. The others gone already
but these two who walk through the lecture hall
to help me pack my books and put a jacket
over my shoulders: time to go.

Take a look at this dust, these old marble steps, scuffed and uneven,
light filters through windows still unbroken, door
still open, desks used for hundreds of years. This silence
so precious, its core sense of repetition and pause, pause
and repetition. I linger with the scent of chalk.

The wide stones from the square
to the scattered beaches
trying to catch every sail
like a shivering mother raising her children,
if she’s lucky, taking them to a real place
without these remnants
torn flags and burning tires.

We run down curling steps
that hook our toes, telling us
this story unravels with smoke
and the smell of gas. It is our time

to see former neighbors and friends
celebrate, while clay surrounds us
and our quick escape shapes us
as clearly as the pottery man makes

out of nothing a vessel strong enough
for water or wine. We climb down
the wide stairs and see in each step
a mouth spelling, daring us
to a getaway full of defiance.

oh, Road
palimpsest of a thousand generations
stamped, I’m sure: “origin Ur”
you stole my home and my name, made me an actor

I ask you why does the boy carry a rodent in his pocket, shares
our rare bread with it?

eyes glisten and gleam in the dark
nails scratch and claw

in my pocket, deep, eating into lint and seam: a key

oh Road, why did I turn around
and lock the door
to a house no longer standing?

oh Road, your dogs are always growling
bare teeth sharp as stones.

Cranes flying south so tight together
sky paints with mother of pearl

oh Road, our faces covered in masks of dust
behind them the rot of leprosy

erasing, erasing every step.

PUBLISHED IN THE J JOURNAL, NYC