PANHANDLE by RON PAUL SALUTSKY
I
You count spiders in the bus stop
eaves, note the webbed wanting, the undone strands a story of air moving around you where you wait facing the misplanted crape myrtles along Blairstone Road, thermos of iced green tea beside you and novel in hand. You want to board the wrong bus and disrupt the already-known of your coming and going, fate's braiding flesh and days, my arms burn for your wholeness, my head churns with spiders who should have been left alone, the bite, the frisson, the fear-- which came first?--memory's tableau written on tissue, we thought to share our pain rather than show our scars, which wasn't quite right. A step in the evening's dim light, some talk of suffering, the seeing where we step, no assurance we wouldn't crush the tiny bodies crawling your heartwood pine floor at night. You tried to paint your pain away, cerulean blue, burnt sienna, gessoed and gouached, the concrete pool ................. |
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