Again
- The past folds like linen
- layered with smells of pollen,
- sunlight, dust in drawers, dark caves.
- You can't remember where
- you've seen this town before.
- Déjà vu, or time
- silting in your brain.
- You slow to a thought
- in front of the courthouse:
- this may as well have been home.
- Flags hang limp from their poles
- like sheets forgotten on the line in rain.
- Old men convene on porches
- to preside with mercuric eyes.
- They poison you.
- You can remember him
- bringing in the sheets
- from the rain,
- being dusty like this town,
- dry and gray but good
- with hands, a carpenter.
- You pay for premium
- at the single station, ask
- for the freeway.
- An ageless attendant points
- the way, gauges distance,
- and waves in your dust.
— The New Press Literary Quarterly
Spring 1995
