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I have no politics to speak of,
but last week I bought a paperback version
of American History for Beginners.
At breakfast, I turned to the plume
of Hiroshima while munching
on the dark side of toast.
I was reminded of the beauty
of gesture--the “duck and cover” we learned
in grade school and how we crouched
under our desks from the Cold War.
I never talk to strangers. But on Cobb Lane,
I smiled at a woman walking a collie
and wanted to hug her dog.
I’m not religious,
but for the first time in years,
I go to church, chant the Nicene Creed, hunger
for something clean--wings, say.
Usually I wake at 6, brew coffee,
pack my knapsack, pull the door to,
and walk six-tenths of a mile to the train.
Today I slept late, dreaming
of flying in a small plane in a wobbly sky.
At the station, passengers loaded with hearts
come aboard, checking their watches.
Normally I don’t describe them.
Today I can’t help noticing the upright
bodies, the feet angled in as if to stay,
the tickettaker who hitches up his pants
and waits. Usually I look out the window,
or read the Times. Today I notice how
a little boy’s hair shines in the sun
and have the urge to feel his warmth
through my palm. I wonder about the synapses
that fire beneath the scalp
or our forward facing feet
when all we want is to go back.
Normally, I write about what I feel.
Now my biggest fear is failed
poems--the kind that take you
just short of understanding
and leave you there--your
hope thin, combustible
as the white flesh of cigarettes.
©2002, Elizabeth Harrington
Elizabeth Harrington's poems have appeared in Field, Nimrod, Spoon River Poetry Review, The Sun and other publications, and in an anthology about divorce, Split Verse: Poems To Heal Your Heart (Midmarch Arts Press, 2000).
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