canto 24
so, Henry, Lucy
so, Maricela, Cruz,
all going to rooms I had,
telling more, with more beer,
then wine,
oh, Henry, watching me
with the embarrassment
of the sinner given to sinning
as he followed his love
to Lucy’s room,
her room,
I laughed to myself.
so, I rose into the window,
when all the others were sleeping,
the window where the moon hung
like a white bulb,
and left them all,
easing my car
under the parkingbasement arch
where the black buildings
across the way awaited the day
and the streetlamps
appeared dim and tired,
made my way
out the quieted city
and yawned when the Meadows
offramp came.
I parked on the softcrunch gravel
of the empty driveway,
walked through the warm night
to the fence,
turned east, turned west
with my face for watchers,
climbed the fence
into a farmscape
of black wagons,
blank stall windows,
and mounds in the distance
where the greenhouses
and the barns would tomorrow
open to the light of the sun.
At the door
to Imelda’s I turned
the key of course she’d given me one),
opened the door slowly
closed the door,
felt the hot breath
of the dogs at my knees
and their tickly whiskers,
and I said, Shh,
and the big cat came
for the wrapping of my legs.
I took a glass of water
in the kitchen,
admired the clean
sink, the hanging plants,
the cat and the two dogs
watching as if I might say
something amazing,
tell them a story,
but instead I went
to the couch;
it faced west;
I would wait,
wait for the sun to rise.
so, Imelda came
and sat beside me there
and put her head on my shoulder.
I’ve come to watch the sun rise,
I said, but the dogs
and the cat want a story.
She said, It should come soon.
They love stories.
And the cat? I asked.
The cat, but dirty stories.
Pornografico, she said.
so, the cat on the coffee table,
the two dogs on their corduroy couches,
waiting, Imelda and I gave them one.
