In the City Without a Name

Nothing takes you where you want to go: the bus of a wrong shape
lets you off down the hill by a park where a man you dont know
is walking his dog. He asks you to sail the Caribbean and seems
disappointed when you say you dont have six thousand dollars.

Back in your apartment you learn there have been 
six random murders in five days. You learn the class you wanted
on form is already full and your keys are lost. They are always lost
or mixed up or tangled.  Nothing opens easily.

A bird on your side lawn is mortally injured and somehow
you are to blame.  You lay it in the tall weeds 
and go away. All day it flies 
after you—you cannot save it or kill it.

Your work has grown to a thick stack and the hunchback poet 
bends over it, encouraging you.  She is kind but the children 
are lost again and you must leave your work to find them.
It is your fault, always your fault.  
They come home scratched, dirty, unforgiving.

At your aunts cocktail party, you seduce a fox-haired sailor.
In someone elses bed, the two of you lie down 
to consume yourselves like over-ripe pears.  
Although hes been dead for years, your husband breaks 
through the door, his voice and fist raised, a rifle in the car.

On the floor of the crowded state hospital
you try to carve out a place, a bed of straw.

The boxcar moves forward into the mist. 
Because there is little hope, 
you must take the crying toddler in your arms and heal him 
with just the right words. 

This is all you can do.
Almost every night there are rain storms; 
on the worst nights, tornadoes. You close yourself 
in a room with no windows and hang on
to a railing, a chair, whatever you can.

If only there were keys—or a credit card
with a workable number; if only you could complain
to someone who would listen.

 

© Patricia Fargnoli