Dear Noah, this morning, running along
the highway I noticed there are more leaves here
than birds, and their dry voices crackle under my feet.
I just received your last post-card and you've moved
again! The west-coast doesn't suit you, and my address
book's S-section is filled with the places you've lived
and left--the rooms I've never been in, never seen.
People here burn leaves, and today a fire
burned the Woolworth down, the square thick with smoke
of plastic, tinsel, and rows of good-n-plenty, malt-balls,
candy cigarettes. I could've cut out patterns of air
and pasted them down to send you a piece of my town.
It's strange: everyone was sad to see the old store go, anxious
should a spark catch wind and spread the flames
to a flood, yet they stood chest to back, close
as the firemen would let them come, and told stories--
she bought her first bike here, they breakfasted
every Wednesday at the counter, how'd he even find another
job. A whole crowd, fathers holding daughters'
hands, pairs of boys delivering papers, breathed
the smoke in deeply and watched as if some fool
were tight-rope walking right there. Roof flames reached
up to the sky for more air to feed on, the birds stayed
sitting on branches, not crying, only holding off
and listening to our restless cry.
When you lived around the hall from me, I'd wake
before you and leave a message on a post-it on your door.
Then I'd run--Ohio flatter than a boat's bottom,
those road-lined cornfields, and the reddening sky
threatening rain. Wind off the lake, I ran right into
the resistance, turning my elbows out for balance, letting
air fill my jacket, lift a layer from my skin.
I'd pass the same shack every morning, knew a Ford
would pass me at this turn, a white truck on that hill,
one woman in a station wagon even took to waving. As I turned
away from the fields, back to our rooms, I knew I'd knock
to find you crust-eyed from studying Chemistry,
and hand you the note I'd left an hour before.
Now I run back to my room (I'm still living in rooms)
and realize there is no more space
in my book for you to move again unless
you come back here. It's the old story, we meet and move
and the telephone is never a substitute for voice.
All I can hear is the space heater blaring, you saying:
write my name in pencil, erase the places I leave.
Pulling off my shirt, I am sweating in the middle
of November and pencils are made of wood, Noah, and wood
can burn and burn to ash or it can float. But there is more
land between us than water, and I won't risk it. The hour
is five days now, at least. I can't hand you letters
or wake you up. It's an old story:
time didn't stop, it ran
reckless--there's no mercy in this autumn sky
that promises rain, cold to come, and storm.
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