"Do I know you?"

That's what she asked

a telephone pole.

She stood in front of it staring

like she expected an answer.

I was walking down Congress Street

when I beheld this odd interchange

between animate existence and inanimate.

She then went to a light post

and asked the same question.

"Do I know you?"

She didn't notice that

I had noticed her.

Maybe she was

rehearsing for something.

There was someone she needed to ask,

"Do I know you?"

She was practicing by asking

telephone poles and

light posts

and now a stop sign.

"Do I know you?" she asked the four white letters on a red background.

I stared at her staring at the sign waiting for an answer.

I wanted to stop and ask her for what reason she was rehearsing that line,

"Do I know you?"

But I walked on.

Later that day I saw her at a Starbucks.

I almost wanted to go up to her and ask her "Do I know you?"

but then I decided I didn't want to make fun of her.

I got a latte and waited,

waited to see if whoever she hoped

to ask that question would come in.

She just sat there with a latte.

I got tired of waiting

and left.

Honeysuckle scent

Announcing that the school year

Will soon be over

Opening Grandma's
book I get a paper cut.
Is that her laughing?

We got the library meeting room
between 930 - 10
when it closed.
I usually recite
the worst poetry,
but that night
I was the hero
b/c I noticed
that the librarian
forgot to lock
the front door.
We go back in.
At 10:45 I do my new sonnet.
I was told it wasn't half-bad.

It was the green-light party.

There was a car in front of me,

a car behind me,

a car to the left of me,

and one to the right.

Strangers in metallic isolating bubbles were bonding --

we honked at each other --

rolled down our windows,

shouted at each other --

"There's another!"

Some cars were more expensive than mine,

some cheaper --

And then there was a red light.

And the green-light party ended.

Big white shoes swing wide
While small dog struggles to keep
Up with mincing steps

Read grandmother's books
Found passages underlined
She lived once again

Why did Liz jilt the Frobe?

And why was I seated between them?

Was it because we all came from the same island?

What would Liz reveal?

And how would the Frobe disagree?

And if she gets too loud?

And he got too mad?

Like his sixth glass always promised?

Well...

I was wearing the comfortable shoes

Of any good savateuse

Olive-drab dress, black
Gloves: a brief mambo, prelude
To her last heartbreak

In and out of a
Patch of sunlight dragonflies
Flit, backs emblazoned

Woman holds sign that

Says "A Little Kindness Please"

I just stare ahead

On the skywalk

I saw
Two men greet
Each other with smiles
On the crosswalk

I saw
A young man and young woman
Holding hands
On the sidewalk

I saw
An old man
Cradling a baby girl
On the boardwalk

I broke
From my pause
On the skywalk

The man in the red party hat
Said
I don't know if I'm wearing a
Party hat that's red
Or a hat for a red party

Someone said
Throw him a hyphen

He caught it with his right hand
Tossed it up
Caught it with his left hand

He turned it upside down
He turned it around
He looked at its underside
Then twirled it and tapped it on his palm

Then he threw it back to us
And said
"I'll just see what happens."

Everyone was told to stay indoors

The fish were “humaning”

Baiting hooks with Xanax and ******

And other pharmaceuticals to help us get through the day

Working stiffs wanting a little surcease

Found themselves descending through water

To who knows what fate

As pets maybe?

But do we put trout in aquariums?

I made the decision

To stop hydrophobically cowering in my apartment

And set out

Forswearing all chemical crutches

Sad to see too many of my fellow **** sapiens

Getting wet against their will

Footstep 1: It's the biggest mountain in the entire state

Footstep 2: Do I really think I can climb it?

Footstep 3: I bought these boots just to climb it

Footstep 4: Or maybe I should have bought new lungs

Footstep 5: Just start walking forward; just take one step

Footstep 6: Okay so I'm walking, but it's flat ground

Footstep 7: It's going to get harder and more harder

Footstep 8: Still I'm walking forward, it's just eight footsteps

Footstep 9: But still I'm moving, that mountain is waiting

Footstep 10: Don't worry, top of the mountain, be patient

Sittin' in the 50's
Listenin' to the 60's

You mean decades?
Nah.

A series of streets in Manhattan then?
Nope.

Then a weather trend: This week we'll be in the 50's
but next week it's –
Not even.

I'm talking about the help-desk ranch
(Yes that's what they call it and I probably don't want to know why)
Sittin' in the cubicles numbered 50 to 59
with a bunch of guys stolid durable focused

Am I the only one of them listening to the girls in the 60's
Those lilts, those shatters of laughter
(or laughters of shatter)

Hearing it begin with “Girl!...”
And a punctuation mark and three dots
Never smelled so nice off the page
Never promised so much

And then:
“Thank you for calling IT support. This is Quadnishia. Is this a new or an existing issue?”
And then the spell is broken.

Who would want to read the poem that I wrote?

Might it be that man in the red party hat...

(And don't ask me what a red party hat looks like

It's just something I made up and I'm not even

Sure

If it's a party hat that's red or a hat for a red party.)

So really who would want to read the poem that I wrote?

Maybe that woman I saw running in six-inch-high heels in the morning

And then ambling in tennis shoes in the evening

And actually I never have seen a woman like that

But if she does exist

Maybe she would want to read the poem that I wrote.

We got out of the car and went to a field that I oddly thought might have made a good place to play baseball or football or soccer even though I never play sports anymore or never really did even as a kid.

I sat on my haunches and...
wondered what was I going to say to her in that long thick silence.

It was night and I heard no cries or calls of animals or machines.

I hoped that Gina wondered the same thing.

I remembered as a boy getting so bored I’d dig a hole that looked something like this         and then I would fill it up again so it looked somethinglikethis just for something to do.

I wondered if Gina had ever dug a hole in her life.

Admittedly, it was a strange thing to wonder.

We live in a town with an Indian name
An Indian name from a language that's no longer spoken
An Indian name from a people who may no longer exist

Sometimes someone will say what the name of our town means in the Indian language
And we'll marvel at that
More likely we'll just laugh

Because our town is nothing like the way the Indians said it is
It's a place with a lot of fast-food restaurants
And it's a place with a lot of sit-down restaurants where you can't buy anything that costs less than $40

If we leave this town
Sometimes we'll talk about how we're from this town
Or how we're going back to this town
And then when we get back there maybe
We'll get a call from a telemarketer who can't pronounce the name of our town
That's not how you say it we'll say
It's...

And that will be one of the only times that a word from this Indian language is ever said

I'm happy to have a fulfilling job
The only time I'm not happy
Is when I consider how so many
Have unfulfilling jobs to
Support my fulfilling job

Like for instance
There's the guy who shines my shoes twice a day
That's because I have to kick things
And I need good-looking shoes for that
He shines my shoes with a smile
On his face or somewhere on his body
But I can't believe he finds his job as fulfilling as I find my job
When I get to kick something

There's also the guy who looks after my health
At first he was just my taster
Making sure no one poisons me
But then his duties were extended
Up to including reading
The Possible Side Effects
Of all my medications

And there he saw it one day:
And said
“It says here that one possible side effect of this medicine is the delusion that you have a fulfilling job when you don't have such a fulfilling job.”
And then it all went ****

And I found myself back to working an unfulfilling job
Now I just hope I can remember how to do it
Because a long line of angry customers is forming somewhere in relation to where I am positioned now

There was one window
On about the seventh floor
Of the abandoned paperboard factory

Every window had been broken so far
Danny broke three
Clay two
Me one
Eric eight
But for that one window
On the seventh floor
Glaring at us
Daring us

Eric pitched a no-hitter
Against the Sievewright Sifters
Danny caught a foul at a Patrones game
Clay won a huge Bugs Bunny at the fair
(I was cut from the school's team but kept that to myself)

Still that window
Hovered
Unbroken
Spotless perhaps
Giving views
Of a muddy river
And sagging city
(Or would have
If anyone still worked there)

Then one day
We were walking
Just four kids
Walking
Where a crowd of a thousand
Would once mob
Each day at eight
Then at three
Then at eleven
But now never again

And that window was broken
Left with an open jagged entryway
About a foot in diameter
Just a little bit of each corner remaining
The northeast in dangling pieces
And I saw what did it
But didn't say
A dead pigeon lay near the empty Dumpster

I let them marvel
At whatever transient hobo hitchhiker
Might have come by
With a throwing arm
Like Nolan Ryan's

I was trying to impress Ella at the art reception
Telling her a fishing and then a hunting and then a garage saling story
When I notice her looking over my right shoulder
At

A non-descript male
Who like me
Wore no rings
Had his hair combed to the side

And made a somewhat believable attempt to understand
What was mounted on the east-side wall
I dreamed that night of a mob
Me allied with 10 tall strong men

Or at least taller and stronger than him
Tall and strong enough
To corner him at the cliff
by the site of the forgotten Revolutionary war skirmish

As we stood facing him
Trying to think of what we would do to hurt him
When suddenly the ground we stand on collapses and we go tumbling down
Limbs hitting limbs

Torsos slamming torsos
Until we're in a moaning pile
And what does the nondescript man noticed by Ella do
but throw us a rope or some kind of lifeline and pulls us up

And in gratitude I grab him by the hand
And pull
He tumbles
Laughing

And I walked away
Knowing he was okay down there below

Looking out the call-
center window I see blue
jays and cardinals

The snowshoe hare hid
In the whiteness but the wolf
Even whiter pounced

Rivaling gunfire
ten pairs of rock dove wings boom
and greet my presence

Shift begins: look how
Slow those seconds crawl: Shift ends:
See how they speed up

I went to a European restaurant recently
and it may have been in Europe too
It wasn't a bad meal
And the waiter presented me with a bill crowded with euros
Or maybe pounds
I looked at it
Then said to him
"How about paying me the bill you owe me?"
He gawked at me.
"How about paying me the bill for serving as your pressure valve. Do you know how many insurrections, how many assassinations we prevented by taking in your frustrated and disaffected?"
He continued to gawk at me.
So I continued.
"No, really. Do you know how much you owe us for saving you from the Kaiser, from ******, from Mussolini, from who knows how many more crazies?"
He gawked, not knowing whether to call the gendarmes or reach into his billfold.
I continued.
"How about the bill you owe us for showing some restraint? You know we could have hanged every **** and Fascist officer over colonel at least? But we didn't. Instead we turned them into Siemens executives and Fiat general managers."
He still gawked, poised to jump for a phone or maybe just shout real loud.
So I continued.
"How about the bill for making your mediocre artists into rich men and women? You know it's us who turned Abba into stars. It's we who built the Scorpions' mansions."
He finally said something.
"Scorpions don't live in mansions. They live in nests."
I got up and left, then paused outside,
rested the left sole of my Ferragamo shoes on a Ferro Concrete wall
And waited to get arrested by cops without guns

I walk these streets
Where my grandfather walked
From a town on the other side of the state
I walk these streets
Where my father walked
From a town on the other side of the country
And sometimes I can hear my grandfather shouting
Saying, "Do you think this concrete ever gets softer?"
And my father -- his son in law -- turns around
And even though the two of them never met
He replies
No I don't.

“Oh, my husband has been ill. He just got out of the hospital.”

An unneeded apology for the elderly man's labored pace

I didn't but I should have told the elderly woman that I was in no hurry to collect their newspaper subscription.

I stood patiently

As 40 years passed

And somehow I remembered that old man and old woman in an apartment complex set back in the
desert

Reading about the fall of Saigon, the Mayaguez, Ford to New York: Drop Dead

Fading away

Their names no longer spoken

Like Saigon, Mayaguez, Ford

Only New York persevering

In the same place maybe where

I spot a flicker and a shadow

A young boy and young girl holding hands

Twenty-five by eight on the muddy water
She steps from rocking wood
to solid land
Looking forward to dry dirt, not mud and water
on her gingham dress
Five thousand square feet off
W. Evergreen, the Weedstreet District
"Can you believe all these people," he says.
"I thought they say no one has money."
And Rod Stewart replies, "Billy left his home with a dollar in his pocket..."
And then outside
She looks up in the sky and marvels:
"Hey, the Sears Tower is still there."

Meagan, Quidnishia, and Pam marched in
Dressed to the nines
(Unlike the other 5-daze)
Amens traded for
"How may I help you today?"

America started working out
Hit the gym every other day
Jogged on the others
Ended up losing 50 nuclear bombs

Russia said, "You're looking good
How do you do it?
I keep trying and trying
And the weight stays."

Iran patted its paunch and frowned,
"You and me both."

At the 80s dance party
I saw the English teacher
Who gave me an F- for
The Emily Dickinson test

Dancing with his eyes shut
Flailing his arms hard enough
To bruise someone
To a song that I hated when it first came out in 1985

But now I liked it
And so I started dancing
Just by myself like the teacher

And if Emily had asked if she could have
Danced with me
I would have thought

Hey, she asked me
But she didn't ask him

Through the plate-glass window
Of the Fire Bowl Cafe
I see three women in royal-blue scrubs
Triangulated on the parking lot

One holds a *** of yellow flowers
Thankful
Appreciated
Smiling like I haven't seen anyone smile all day that day
(Not even in the movie I just saw)

They distriangulate
And I watch the appreciated one
Put her *** of flowers on the asphalt next to her SUV
I wait for her to open the back door and put them in
But she doesn't
She just drives away

And leaves them there
Yellow and blue
Becoming yellow and black
As I wait for her to return
As I wait for a stranger to stop and steal them
Finally I get up
And leave

Let's walk across this slippery floor holding hands
And see which of us falls first
Maybe in a moment of playful competition
You'll nudge me
Or I'll nudge you
But I'll grab you before you fall
Or you'll grab me

If we make it to the other side
Let's head back on our hands and knees
(Except then we can't hold hands
You say with your wheezy staccato laugh)

I remember my dad and his friend playing Frisbee in the street
I remember how gently my dad's friend tossed it and how fiercely my dad caught it

I remember my dad and his friend listening to a jazz record
I remember how avidly my dad's friend tapped his shined shoe to it and how patiently my dad watched it spin around

I remember my dad and his friend driving in a convertible
I remember how carefully my dad's friend drove and how hopefully my dad stared into the horizon

One night after work
A bunch of the guys in the call center
Invited me out for drinks/ice cream/book group
Or something
And though I was sure it was a set up
To get back at me
For having squishy shoes and a dry wit
I went along
First we went to a tiger-kitten fight
I advised betting on the tiger
But they bet on the hundred kittens
ranged against the representative of Siberia
But the kittens lazed where they were
And the tiger fell asleep
No fight
We all got our money back
I said I bet we can win at something
And so we went to a horse race
Lined up was a cayuse, an appaloosa, a Claybank Dun, a Tennessee walking horse, even a Przewalski's horse (aka a Dzungarian)
But the equine competitors just stood in their places
And we were told:
"The race isn't to see which one is fastest. It's to see which one is most long-lived."
A crowd stood around
Waiting to see which one would drop first
But we got tired
And went to a football game
Between the El Paso Patrones
And the Gun Barrel City Daggers
Somehow the ball got lost somewhere
Disappeared into the ground
At least some went digging for it
Or floated up in the sky
Some went jumping for it
But a man who wore a size 15 volunteered his left shoe as replacement
And the game resumed
The El Paso Patrones winning by one-fourth of a point
I then bid my workmates good-bye
Surprised I hadn't been set up for some sort of humiliation
And went sauntering somewhere
Until I found size 15 footprints of a man hopping on one foot in the mud
I idly followed them until I came to
the ravine that separates
misers who hoard silver
from seekers who sift through Coke bottles
And figured that if he could jump across
Hopping on one shod foot
I could do the same
Hoping with two

Rivaling gunfire
ten pairs of rock dove wings boom
and greet my presence

Sleeved out with tats
a stud in her nose
tailgating me
in a yellow Mustang
Common blaring
born in 1900
met him in 1855
lost him in 1942
still mourning
still morning
as she throws rocks at wolf cubs
to get to the strawberries
because
for a good meal
call a gatheress
Ancestress
of both
the killers
and the killed

Poem scrawled on the back of a MENS Step-Study Sign Up sheet left in a library book, The Use and Abuse of Literature, I checked out today:

The sleeper, though eyes closed and lying
Supine, awakens later only halfly and
The shape of the dawn comes in
Heavy ladders, steel beams
Slabs drying white to gray as they
Harden -- and feels as though
He slept not at all when the
Night was spent in dreams
Of

Only an hour left
of summer, a cicada
issues its last call

Don't go to school for knowledge, Granddad said
Good teachers
Leave you wondering
The best
Keep you mystified

Talking to himself
Maybe there was a time when
Somebody listened

Trudging up a hill
With a buggy a mom moves
Her baby forward

Big bird the toddler
Shouted but no one looked at
The heron flying

Look at him
Carrying
A book
Like he hopes it will get away from him.
A textbook for a hated class?
(I try to read the title on the spine, but can't make it out.)

Look at her
Clutching
Her purse
Like she fears someone will grab it from her.
(I wonder if whatever it holds is worth all that tension.)

Look at them
Holding hands
Like they know neither of them will get away from each other.

Waitress carrying
Table in from sidewalk smiles
At a skateboarder

I saw an acorn
In the corner of the men's room
Kicked in randomly I guess
By workers rushing to escape
Another tardy


So I picked it up
Carried it outside
And tossed it randomly
On the corporate front lawn
Next to where the executives park

Then I waited to see if a tree would grow

We had to be there at our moms’ art show
It’s okay sitting around with Ed
But it gets kind of boring
Then the parking-lot attendant got a Coke in a bottle
For his break
Drank it down in fifteen minutes and left it out on the picnic table out front
I threw a rock at it and missed
Ed threw a rock at it and missed
I threw a rock at it and missed
Ed threw a rock at it and missed
I threw a rock at it and smashed it into at least about fifty big and little pieces
I laughed
Ed laughed
Then we went inside
Found a trashcan
And picked up the pieces
And dropped them in
Years later I was still thinking about it
Wondering if we missed a piece
Even just a little piece
And someone sat down on it
Because just a few weeks later
I’d learn that it’s just the littlest things
(That can cut the deepest)

I aim my camera at the cage
wondering where the challenge ran off to
as the creature stands helplessly
like a lightweight squaring off against a circling heavyweight