I Have Passed Through

I try to remember
each trip to Austin,
Chicago, Charlotte;

try to recall Chicago,
Albuquerque,
Providence, Boston;

think of New York City
and all the hundreds of times
I have seen it, by train and car

coming, going; nights in Harlem,
afternoons in Soho,
bright harsh day light by the wreck

of World Trade Center: the buildings
so tall, sidewalks filthy with spit and
the absence of dreamed fame; then

I mildly miss Los Angeles
or Costa Mesa, Dallas or
Arlington, Chicago again or

this time Arlington Heights, Philadelphia
or Cherry Valley — nostalgic
for antiseptic edge towns and their ersatz chains

of numbered office buildings
and saddening streets orderly
and numbed to anything but commerce;

I think of where I’ve been for
poems and money, money grubbed
in offices and conference rooms,

poetry dubbed in bars and libraries; always,
always writing more in ice-tinged rooms
that looked the same outside and inside;

and where am I now? Two strokes and failing eyes,
sitting damn near silent in Worcester, limited by inability
to drive, likely to never fly again; the nasty word

retirement looming
over my works —
where am I now?

I type the words, sigh
for the past beatings and love
they took.

I type the words, sigh
for the cities and towns
they hold.

Holding so much
and so little,
I type words. I begin again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

onward,
T