Guest Checks
Accidental Poetry from the Graveyard Shift*
I was dreaming of John Coltrane,
woke up suddenly, calm,
and late for work.
I am bending astronomy, reversing gravity,
and the planet turns — astonished — on a toe:
continents cocked, mountains mulling,
seas standing still. While my weather
leaves me wanting, wavering.
I worked in an all-night joint in the [east] village on the graveyard
and I stepped outside for a breath of crisp December chill.
I was standing there on 6th Street, and suddenly I was lifted,
I went away for a passage of time, a brief passing.
I was back in a place I lived some years ago (but not too many);
but I was there and it was a golden glimpse, and I thought to myself
what am I doing here?
And then I came back. Really, only the briefest of a flash
and I knew what I was doing here:
apparently simply waiting for the flashback to arrive
and then depart again, as quietly as possible.
Aha!
What an interesting new breath!
The air of insolence,
oxygen with regret.
A burn going in,
and a scar going out.
It’s one of those mornings when the sun
just moans into grey breaking, and
the day, in pain, screeches forward
like a silent, screaming grimace.
The blood on the street is half real,
hot and tired, in stretched, flexing veins.
As on the jagged edge rides the shadow breaking,
so into the distance runs another reason
not to follow closely on the falling earth
as it opens underneath.
*Random scribbles on blank guest checks made while working overnight in an East Village diner, and recently discovered in a box of photos and other memories.
— New York City, 1997–99
