Swagazine Five

How We Go About It, by Psyche

There are many ways to escape.
A girl buys a 3rd class ticket
to New York City
because her mother went to high
school in Manhattan
& because she needs to scrape
down the sidewalk & smell the poetry
rise from the cracks in the pavement,
hear the echoing rise
& fall of her sneakers
in museum halls
& drink coffee
where Andy Warhol hung
out.
 
& the same girl could miss
her period, & in the cold white fluorescence
of her bathroom, between her beating
heart & the cold beads
on her forehead, she smiles
because she'd do anything
for some life
in her gut
& the stabbing clench
of her morning vomit
will prove
she can still feel.
 
There are many ways to escape, & here
is what it all comes down
to:
when finally she is struck on the street,
caught in the electric flash
of cars & the red plastic announcement
in the parking meter:
time expired
she will need to realize
what is enough.
There are many ways
and it is enough
it is
 
enough to know
that in spite of it all
she is a body
able to keep someone else
warm.

---------------

«   · 4 ·   »

Contents Copyright © 1998 Swagazine Five