DO YOU HAVE THE POEM?
Do you have your river poem?
Do you have your ditch poem?
Do you have the one
with the trenches?
Do you have the poem
about the puddles,
the one about the waters,
the one that flows
back and forth to find
its own level?
Do you have the one
that tells about the deep hole,
the poem about
the hollowed out well?
Do you have the poem
about the mass graves
and the dirt pushed aside?
Do you have your ocean poem?
Do you have the one
that leaves me drenched?
Do you have the poem
that fills my lungs with fluid,
the one that I dive into?
Do you have the poem
that I fall into?
Do you have the poem
that buries me?
Do you have my death poem?
—from Rattle #26, Winter 2006
__________
Christopher Parks: “As a psychologist I have worked for decades on the streets of Detroit with people who are homeless, addicted, and mentally ill. The way of the city is universal. I write to bear witness to a stark beauty in the moment-to-moment effort that threatens to crack the air open wide.”
