Long Distance Call
And lately, doorways
make me flinch. Also
calendars and books without creases.
Completely reasonable, but
when a wasp found my finger
on the walk home, I said, fine,
clutching the swell of pain
as if it were a prize.
I saw it coming. When I was young,
one stung me in the eye, my mother
peering over me like a flashlight.
I know, it’s obvious: the new fear
of thresholds, the old need to predict.
When the first snow hits, the whirling
white notes are always too much for me.
If I were braver, I’d fill my arms
with winter and carry it home.
Some mornings, abandoned shoes
hang from telephone wires.
Why do people throw them there?
I want to wear them or toss my own
so someone, later, waiting for a bus
will watch them wobbling,
the weathered buildings behind them,
the weakly-lit sky, blackening leaves
stuck to the laces and loosening.
But to deserve such a thing.
To want such a thing at all.
(Originally published in Meridian)
