Hitching: 1968
Easing their spines on post-marked
ends of property, the road-worn
sag, sink, recall or forget some other lives
in meaner contexts,
a bag or bedroll dropped, just far enough
a moment’s rest comes easy,
even this blow-by yes, as January
tears toward
narrower, narrowing
paydays
and new
cycles.
Two like yourselves maybe, between
refreshment and live music,
consider their heated lives, in sweats
and markless courtshoes,
unable to speak a word of this, but
sharing their taste
for speed, for the candied fruit
they pass,
slipping by the cruisers, for this
once upon a time
they confuse with sanity,
their futures,
depending, as
these
will…
*
Not on this snow, snow-fencing, no, and
not on the scraps,
scrub, on these hints of wheat,
spring, or electronic
calendars, but on this truce of sorts two build,
remembering
nights at home, the neighbors
with guitars
and combs and squeeze-box instruments,
with ballbats
and marked score-cards, but not
a diamond
anywhere, only such looks as troubles
specialize,
flashing through snow, through
this snow,
falling for now, and
any
where.
*
Two like yourselves, let’s say, schooled
by extremes,
search clouds like resignations passing over,
like catalogs
of known facts, starting the star-gazers,
ballplayers in, mid-sentence
in, so that a room seems everything, and
the scarves ( ripped off )
accessories all over, fires they burn
and burn again,
until the bags, the bedrolls bid,
until two stand,
stretch, setting the tones
for days,
and the tones for
dreams
ahead.
*
So long as this fine-blow eases some,
eases to dawns
seen through the thumbprint sides
of emptied
goblets, through lifetimes then, like breath
the breathless
take apart in neutral corners, they’ll
wait, until
winds again allure, and tracks
of their own
appear, then — just
as cleanly —
make to
vanish.
About Robert Lietz
