Get Out

The governor had eyes like laughing fire.
He wore a heavy coat back then. Always

The governor the only one in the room
Back then, before he became the law.

Now again the governor,
Right here outside my battered door.

Gone the lewdness in his bones for me.
It’s time to leave, he says, he says.

“Get out, get out,” he says, he says,
Clapping hands to make like thunder.

There is a subway all my own.
You may ride it if you wish.

All my livelong life
Have I gone on it to and fro

Through ancient tunnels
Rife with the rich grayness of their years.

Will you not hear the commotion in my head
In roaring past the station of my youth

And see the young in sly position
To obscure my view?

North, far north, of where I ever
Could have lived,

I find a bench on which to sit.
White feet and strange legs appear below.

My mother was born in 1904.
My father never lived.

Of friends I have few.
I want to stay here forever.

I want to remember the dead.
I want to rest in their embrace.

I want these words to reach the stopped-up
Ears of those who would depart from me.

I will write to the governor.
My location will be his to know.

With my hand will I reach for his smooth face
And stroke it with my fearful touch.

June 2003