qarrtsiluni

by Mike Puican

after “Spring” by Gerald Stern

The dawn the dawn after a night-long rain the poem
the one by Gerry Stern the alley the alley the
one I turn down as fallen leaves loosen the brightly painted girl
of the waterfall within me of whom
I’ve been silent for decades the linden the linden
slowly dying that later will return alive and Eros
standing naked among the parked cars. What does it want of me,
shameless, unraveling the thread-like thing woven
from the bright intersections of avenues, the hand
of the wild-eyed street preacher that comforts no child, the touch
the touch that speaks both cherishing
and farewell? I watch an airplane float through
a billboard on my left. I slip
past the commuters waiting for a bus as quietly as
an old man coming in for supper.
Where is my plot? A chorus of locusts
sings out; a woman with red shoes and pocketbook
spins; the streets intersecting Clark Street scatter and disentangle.

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Mike Puican has been published in the New England Review, Michigan Quarterly, and previously here at qarrtsiluni, among other places.