by Howie Good
The librarian doesn’t care
as she once might have
that the books I’m returning
are missing some words.
Then I come to a forest,
dark, mossy clouds
like morbid thoughts
not even drugs can dispel.
A yellow cab, its engine running,
is always waiting at the curb
for a messiah to appear.
It’s the difference between
a democracy and a republic,
and though there’s no wind,
the puddles shiver.
My face reminds people
of someone they knew long ago,
before the assassinations
and the roadside bombings.
I stop to rest with the newborn
on the border of shrill gulls.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of six poetry chapbooks, including the free e-book, Police and Questions (Right Hand Pointing, 2008). He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and twice for the Best of the Net anthology.
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