“My New Address Book”
came today. I’ve been meaning to retire the contacts who stare
back when I flip through wanting to talk, and there’s no one there.
There’s nothing wrong with these people I used to know—
the mayor, his women, and the police chief who wanted to know
why they didn’t see it coming.
The petty politicians of my own small town of a heart are grumbling.
I cut the chord of the old address book back west,
put only the people I would want to hear from again in the new book lest
they return with me to the old coast.
Flipped through one day, watering its rows.
There was still no one to call there.
The pages were foreign lines, a wordless stare.
The trick of returning to now is to let it be that alien.
To see what you see, methodically, and look again.
