(grateful)

Out of town
I am grateful
for you.
In a bar with
Italian-looking
men in suits &
jewelry.
One of them,
a Sly Stalone look-alike
with a neck,
and what I think they
mean by chiselled
good look – which aren’t –
who wears a poet’s
shirt but shouldn’t,
& uses the word
phenomenal far
too easily.

I cannot understand
who I am here,
a country mouse
in my dusty green sweater
I’m sick of.
But I stay too long
so that when I
return to our
somnambulent community,
I question it as well.
You are snappish
at my entrance
because I let out
the cat.

How do people travel?
I have only been
72 minutes from
home for an evening.
My head is muddled
from bar telelvision,
my body sluggish
from bread & butter,
potato & butter,
fruit & ice cream.

I have been dipped
once again into
the cultural dis-
location that has
marked my life, like a chair
into a stripping vat.
You say just observe
and write.

But for me it is
not as easy as
that.
It will take me
a couple of days
to regain the
balance I never
had, to get over
my hesitation
to leave home.

3/22/99