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\nA handsome man buys my book, asks me to read
\nhis poetry sequence about Pablo Casals that’s in
\na suitcase in a bus station nest. It’s a time when
\nanyone<\/i> can be an enemy combatant because
\nof bad luck—ah, no. I sign my name over and
\nover again, as if I’m in a killer bee spelling bee.
\nWhy do these hieroglyphics matter to strangers?
\nI have yet to heal my mirror, much less theirs.<\/p>\nOne reader is a chiseled Christian, a library in
\ntight jeans. Another is Zoracaster just flirting at
\na taco stand; he’s a new poem waiting a poet.
\nMy exhaustion feels like jet lag without the journey.
\nI carry a leather notebook—in case of? A poem or
\nany motorcycle rides out of the mysteries of my myself.
\nI’m mistaken for Robert Downey, Jr.—in a mug shot?
\nI sign my books, stop owning them, and mourn later.<\/p>\nI sign, but think of Sandburg’s tall Chicago, Hughes’ Harlem
\nof shiny shoes, Arenas’ vanishing Cuba, Ritsos’ Greece of
\nerotic ghosts, Hemingway’s pubic Paris, Dos Passos’ scared
\nUSA, Armchair’s unedited Jerusalem, our O’Hara’s NY of
\n“sun-like” Puertorriqueños, Paz’s silent Tiajuna, Gasoline’s Rome
\nof stigmata feasts, Auden’s horsed Iceland, Isherwood’s Berlin
\nin a bad blonde wig, Haney’s mud-fed paradise, Calvino’s
\nfloating Italy and Arroyo’s—will any place actually be mine?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nFrom The Buried Sea: New and Selected Poems<\/i><\/a>, a collection of Rane Arroyo<\/a>‘s poems going back to 1985. Other poems by Arroyo available online include “Always<\/a>” (at the Poetry Foundation’s website), “Tequila Country<\/a>” (at Agni<\/i>), and “The Wandering<\/a>” (Strange Horizons<\/i>). He also had several poems<\/a> included in the summer 2003 issue of Poetry<\/i>.<\/p>\n