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Classic and Contemporary Poetry | |||
The train stops. I'm trying to remember the name of a woman at a train stop like this years ago who said she was possessed by demons she called Enslaved Selves. Gave them names like Toxic Tamalina, Malignant Majesta. But wasn't her real name Karen or was it Karla? I gaze out the window at the city's lunch counter lights, wondering why it feels like I've been here in some sub-zero past stuck in time -- nickname and all. Through the window I see a railroad-crossing bar, Sam's Diner, and beyond, a run-down town, one with nothing coming -- either way. Two tow trucks are stuck in mud. A green light stuck on green. The stillness is unfriendly -- dangerous as an uninspected dam. I see the shadow of a woman coming across the tracks. Her name might be Karen. Remember myself saying, "Nice meeting you. Hope you dispossess you . . . yourself --" and her correcting me, saying, "Selves," and, "Thanks." Very rational. On second thought her name might have been Karla and the city might have been Santa Fe or Savannah. Caught between foot trails and foothills, it's hard to say. I've lived a long time and made about as much impression as a polypod on the rest of the hope-and-grope garden. Karen? The train was coming. Red light stuck on red. What I have to say about Karen can be said in my last days in the rest home half out of my mind on the sun porch at midday midafternoon or midway of a game of pool in the rec room. She was kind, civil and kind -- and very rational. As sane as any of us. Saner, underlined. But will I live that long? Surrounded by shady rock-walls, spruce and sweet sedge with a blue-eyed nurse taking my pulse between her quick cigarette trips out by the whitewashed wall. But most likely that other Karen will be somewhere too, with her memories of having slipped her enslaved selves off to places like Saginaw and Sacramento releasing them, like little birds tossed up set free to fly. She will watch them huff and puff, up over the yucca and the yew. They will beat their motorcycle wings -- crotch-rockets hit by a windstorm. But don't count on any of this or the special symbols: emotional ports of entry, lonely airports where she might be spotted, telling her story to stranger after stranger. Don't count on seeing her on a ferry crossing over from the mainland to the island, or next to you on the train. As I say, the name might be the same but the heartbeat is purely individual. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SYNCOPATED CAKEWALK by CLARENCE MAJOR REVELATION AT CAP FERRAT by CLARENCE MAJOR SAND FLESH AND SKY by CLARENCE MAJOR A GUY I KNOW ON 47TH AND COTTAGE by CLARENCE MAJOR AGING TOGETHER by CLARENCE MAJOR AT THE ZOO IN SPAIN by CLARENCE MAJOR ATELIER CEZANNE by CLARENCE MAJOR BALLROOM DARK by CLARENCE MAJOR |
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