Kit Robinson

Parallel Lives

     i.m. Kevin Killian

Poetry is a waiting game
You wait for the line
To fill the stanza
With life
A stolen moment
From the distribution center
Of language
We just work here
The sound
Of a barking dog

Light the fuse
And a series of small explosions
Takes place
Like tin cans strung together
That dangle from the rear bumper
Of a car marked up
With soap
JUST MARRIED
As line marries line
On into an unknowable future

Fill it with life
Look out the window
Walk to the corner
Pick up the phone
Decisions, decisions
Break for lunch
Dig the streets
Hum a tune
Be there for somebody
Somebody special

All along
That engine sound
PG&E is repairing the lines
Where they connect
Under the streets
We live in the city
The definite article
Celebrated in these lines
Whose center is everywhere
Whose edge is nowhere

After foraging for mushrooms
In the outlying forest
The bearded Russian
Sits on the bus
A backpack full of them
On his lap
Leningrad 1990
A memory carried forward
Past the lives of comrades
No longer with us

The poem arrives
Sooner or later
If at all
All the splendor
All the ardor
Spills out onto the table
The periodic table
The elements of our lives
Add up to
Minus a sudden breath