By Karen Wolf
Checks are cashed, billboards loom, and rats scuttle
ahead of subway trains. Maybe the lion roars at the zoo.
Like parrots we repeat hold that bus, all the radios
in Chicago are playing marches, and a dog’s bark echoes
in the alley. Maybe eyes are teary with onion slicing,
sentiment, or some such thing. I am fond of your
somber depths and the way you eat with your elbows
on the table. Don’t hold back now, you’ve voiced
your fear of falling from a great height. Fortunately
we live nowhere near the Hayward Fault, a long
and lethal crack in the Earth. I have made a joke.
I’d like to find a patch of grass for our blanket, neck
in the lee of tombstones, twirl hula hoops around
our hips. You hardly ever cry on my shoulder at all now.
I’ve told you to tell me what you want. I don’t know
about you, but the more I try to puzzle together the facts
of my life, the less I feel the truth of them. Then bang,
a gun goes off or a car backfires, and that’s the only
truth there is, and it goes unheard by those stuffing
envelopes somewhere or those getting naked or those
climbing into Mustangs. All these lives go on with
perhaps few thoughts of lions at zoos. How do they
find their way with so many paths to choose from
and all the street signs covered by foliage and wind
coming from every direction? We know this wind
and exhaust ourselves walking against it. Oh how
our hair is tousled and still we sit still never.
ahead of subway trains. Maybe the lion roars at the zoo.
Like parrots we repeat hold that bus, all the radios
in Chicago are playing marches, and a dog’s bark echoes
in the alley. Maybe eyes are teary with onion slicing,
sentiment, or some such thing. I am fond of your
somber depths and the way you eat with your elbows
on the table. Don’t hold back now, you’ve voiced
your fear of falling from a great height. Fortunately
we live nowhere near the Hayward Fault, a long
and lethal crack in the Earth. I have made a joke.
I’d like to find a patch of grass for our blanket, neck
in the lee of tombstones, twirl hula hoops around
our hips. You hardly ever cry on my shoulder at all now.
I’ve told you to tell me what you want. I don’t know
about you, but the more I try to puzzle together the facts
of my life, the less I feel the truth of them. Then bang,
a gun goes off or a car backfires, and that’s the only
truth there is, and it goes unheard by those stuffing
envelopes somewhere or those getting naked or those
climbing into Mustangs. All these lives go on with
perhaps few thoughts of lions at zoos. How do they
find their way with so many paths to choose from
and all the street signs covered by foliage and wind
coming from every direction? We know this wind
and exhaust ourselves walking against it. Oh how
our hair is tousled and still we sit still never.
Karen Wolf believes something violent goes on in the heart of our galaxy and
the looting has begun without us.
