Resisting Gravity

This is an older poem, but I recently got it accepted by Zygote In My Coffee which is a fantastic mag you should all be reading at http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/


The cycle is starting and
again I’m feeling like writing was never the right thing for me.
That I would be better off hapless, like I was that day,
that the weather shuddered and turned over
and I frowned at the handsome black man
sitting on the curb, his bag in his lap,
his friend at his side.
We were at waiting at the light and
for a change, I wasn’t driving.
He held my eye for what seemed like forever
through the window of our car
and then like he remembered a raunchy joke
he smiled
all those white teeth and shining eyes
still holding my gaze
and I couldn’t not smile. I was so lonesome.
It would be like resisting gravity
even though moments ago you had been stung by a bee
and the sky was so metallic
I would have to punch holes in it
just to see a dash of light.

It wasn’t till later that I realized
I’ve been searching through this city
for something like that strange moment
since the day we got here.
Waiting for someone to hold down my stare
and then turn it all over on me.

I’ve been missing everything I left behind so badly
that we taped the photos up on the walls
just so I can remember,
that yes,
so far
it’s been a good life
better than I remember
or at least better than I let myself remember.
and you tell me it will keep getting better
as long as we don’t have kids
or become stagnant
or stop writing
and I know you are right.
There were other great writing couples
Ted and Sylvia,
Stan and Anne,
hell, Ginsberg and Orlovsky had decades in
those tiny apartments, their life collected in sweat, smeared fingerprints
and a comfortable mattress on the floor,
so why not us?
We got the bag full of tricks right here.
We’ll be the hitchhikers.
We’ll remember the raunchy joke next time.
It’ll be us sitting on that stoop someday
smiling at the red-headed girls that drive by
making them remember
if even for a second,
what the whole goddamn point is.