G. C. Waldrep

 

SKYLAND BOULEVARD

 

In the dream we all left one another

for discrete communions, though overlapping

in minor details of the spirit—a hatbrim,

say, fringe of black or gray on a winter coat.

When we saw one another in the street

it was with a kind of frank sadness, as if

we had known all along it would come to this.

Waking, the room seemed brighter

than the word refurbished would otherwise

have suggested. Outside the rain had stopped.

I walked down to where the chain stores

clustered by the freeway, bought a paper, a Coke,

half a sandwich. On the way back

I noticed a footpath leading into the scrub pines

behind the grocery. That same tired argument:

repentance, metanoia in the Greek,

the body's thick coresidence, the mind's

allegiance misconstrued. I boarded the noon train

with over-the-counter barbiturates in my left

pocket, knowing all too well the stops and hard-worn

stations on the red-eye through north Georgia,

around me every present touch or polite

intimation either collapsing or, like the light,

flying helpless and helplessly apart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

G.C. Waldrep's books of poetry are Goldbeater's Skin (Colorado Prize, 2003) and Disclamor (BOA Editions, forthcoming 2007).