Stewart
Brisby
Poet/Writer
| AN
OLD ENEMY LEAVING TOWN for ronnie |
| tonight i returned
& found you gone your death spoken casually on tongues of survivors who live where home is closed til 2 a.m. & mothers keep children from polluted water. they say you drank yourself to sleep with A CAPFUL FOR THE DEAD & THE FELLAS UPSTATE a toast to asphalt children crossing the east river drive to dance dark green water at river's edge in spite of undertow warnings & because of them. once after scars had healed i heard you speak proudly of our violence & knew you were alone we deserved much better for you than this. warm summerwine settles in dust between cracks that once threatened to break our mothers' backs & wolverines who dwell the pavement flock to me now with palm & tarot readings offering full pardon for felonies we've forgotten. & they will never understand why we liked dancing so near the edge of that dark green water on the east side of harlem. |
Stewart Brisby
(from A Death In America © 1986)