Saving
Hackensack, New Jersey
by Frank Matagrano
by Frank Matagrano
For the last decade, I've done my best thinking
surrounded by ice. Depending on the season,
I have to fly a thousand miles north of this city
to find a little snow so I can sit for an hour
and think of skin, how it cracks in the cold,
how it breaks under pressure, how it bleeds.
When I return I stand on a roof top
and count street lights until I am full of silence.
There's always a cat screaming for milk;
I hear everything, I have to live with this
even if a red cape isn't draped over my shoulders.
I'm holding a flower for dear life,
I don't know what kind, I should know
better than to mix affection with duty.
Forgive me, Lois, for my white shirt and stutter,
for the square-rimmed specs, for making you wait
by the hot dog vendor. I am a liar, I'm dying to talk,
I have a hundred stories - it's hard to believe
any of them - don't even get me started
on Hackensack; God knows what would've surfaced
if its iron lung was ripped open by explosives:
a stained handkerchief, a partial denture, a coffee
pot, a bowl without sugar, a limp wing, a cracked piece
of china, one sock, one shoe, a scorched mattress.
There would've been a little truth - for me at least -
a little light - that's one religion's word for it - a little
rest from all of this jumping. I'm thinking about
what it's like to walk down Fifth Avenue - any street,
really - with a crutch, my balance
ruined by my own sweet failure.
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