Poems From a Large-Sized Small Town

Accounting

Love yourself first

They say.

How can I love myself

When in this neighborhood

Worth

Means the numbers

On a bank statement.

And heirloom qualities

Like honesty,

Or a flair for words

Are worth minimum wage.

Barely.

The businesswoman

Calls the shots.

In her book, what counts

Are the ephemeral numbers

Lingering like old file folders

On the top floor

Of the mirror buildings.

And the total at the end

Of after midnight

Means more than words.

How many poets and dancers

(Even if they only dance or write in their own minds)

Find that the great, invisible Sorter

Places them in the debit column.

Permission

If longing could make love real,

He would know which songs she likes

He would know when she wanted him to hold her hand.

They would look at the future in their palms together.

If she could close her eyes

And make visible that perfect blue

She would know that it would not be foolish

To want him to dance with her.

If she could take the thoughts in her head

And turn them into movement

She would spend time in sparkling Paris,

Or in Italy, where there is no hunger.

If she could change her soul

And make herself a person

Of confidence and competence

She would want to be generous and unafraid

She would sing, even if it were by herself.

She would not need permission.

Table the Question

Let the music of John Coltrane

Contain the restlessness. Let the tension

In your fingers run out.

All day, she has wrung her hands.

Now ring the runoff

From the afternoon’s rainstorm

Out of your chestnut hair.

Drop restlessness into a bowl.

On the table with the keys.

You will never hear that low,

Undercurrent voice again.

There is nothing you can do about it tonight.

The lights in the overbuilt buildings

Make a streak of glitter

Across the night’s lowered eyelid.

Lights and hearts burn all night.

It is too late for Blondie. Go back a few more decades.

Let Trane help you think of your favorite things

Which, decades removed, are not coming back.

There is nothing you can do about it tonight.