South Side of Blue

South Side of Blue

Mike used to live in a midget room
with a five foot high ceiling
and twelve square feet,
including the space heater.
He spent sever short years there
and ten long summers hiding
and hidden behind the cornfield.
He’d listen to the oil wells pump.
He’d make the garden hose coil.
He watched tufts of weed grow as
he drank dollar bottles of wine.
He shared his ice cubes and jars
with anyone who could find him.
He kept his empties on the windowsill.
He would croon long lugubrious vowels
at slivers of broken moon
and wait for his emptiness to fill.
There were always seven adult cats
and a dog called That Blue Dog.
The cats were color coded for easy counting.
He counted them as he ate beans from a can.
Mike grew his own smoke.
He baked his own sand.
He spread his ideas as if they were jam.
He walked everywhere when he went.
He went as often as he could stand
to take a few steps.
He crossed the North Canadian going
and coming.
He felt, like the rest of us, the dangers
of being young.
Additionally he knew the illegality
of his mouth, his subversive thoughts.
He carried conspiracy in his pockets like lint.
He was nervous and fragile as the times.
None of the forms he had to fill out
had a box appropriate to the conditions
of his birth or of his race.
He used to tap dance in the dirt,
in his boots in the powder red earth.
He could kick up little tornadoes at his toes
and stomp‘em flat under his heels.
He knew how Virginia reels.
He considered one word at a time.
He had the time to.
He could deal with it.
A simple sentence could he him typing
until the ribbon grew so vague and thin
it almost whined. He’d type the letter ‘O’
and there’d be a hole.
His fingers wept sweat as he worked over
and old Smith-Corona manual portable.
It was elite and he felt elegant.
He had the urge to be urgent.
It kept him up for the sunrise.
He had the need to be understood.
He burned votive and rubbed unguents.
Necessity was another inconvenience.
He used paper left over from the war.
Everything he had was surplus,
so he always felt as if he had more than enough.
While many of his best friends went on
to Ph.D. degrees and divorces,
he learned to sleep standing up
just like the horses.
He always favored small house
especially in wide open places.
But where he is now, God only knows.
It’s not on the map and there aren’t any roads.

© 07/09/97