#3
"suburban eyes"

for mary


they say the grass is
always greener
on the other side of the street

but when you get there
it's not, it just
looked like that

for a minute there,
& then it's gone. you're in
the same old place, only the people

are changed,
& the surroundings,
& the quality of life

which is not there. only you
are the same, everything else
is completely different.

now you are not there,
no, now you are the thing
that has changed

or has not changed
in all the confusion. you carry
all the places you've been

around inside of you,
the virginia countryside,
the streets of paterson, new jersey,

the apartments on the east side
of detroit, the northwest side,

in oak park. & now the house
where you brought me
to be all the men in your life,

absent like your father,
present like your two husbands,
or like the uncles who misused you as a child—

just like that, there were too
many of them & only the one
of me at hand. so,

although
i was there to stay
you sent me away

& as fate would have it,
the woman i left for you
was good enough to take me back

into the city
& into her heart again
where i intend to remain

(this is not,
by the way,
a monk piece. monk

never left
the middle
of the city

until his work was over
& consequently
the city

never left monk.
& for me, well,
i should have stayed there

in the heart
of the city
where i sure enough belong

—oak park, mi
may 30, 1984/

amsterdam
january 6, 2013