Two Places at Once
Last fall I walked along the rocky bank
where a few scrubby trees quiver by the fork
where a few scrubby trees quiver by the fork
in the stream, where a snake and I startled each other.
She was about to slip into the water
when I said, “It’s going to be too cold for you.”
She curled around to look me in the eye.
What do you know – old man in red sneakers.
I know I’ve walked into a theater of the absurd,
and I know autumn is uncoiling, down to its last.
Look at all the pale leaves on the path,
smell the fragrance of fresh water and decay.
Onstage, standing in front of a sylvan backdrop
I spy a lady in a blue turban, alone in a box, stage left,
above the exit sign that hums louder than it should
and from backstage, a low drone. Row after row
is empty, seats up. But for her the audience has gone.
Light glances off blue folds of the silk design.
Just then the wind carries
the musk of moss and fungus along the streambed
to her nostrils. She huffs and hisses and looks away.
What does the east wind know that hasn’t been said?
How did I miss October’s brightest, warmest days?
© David P. Kozinski
David P. Kozinski’s books include I Hear It the Way I Want It to Be and Tripping Over Memorial Day (Kelsay Books) and his chapbook, Loopholes (Broadkill Press) which won the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. He is poet in residence at Rockwood Museum in Wilmington, DE, has been a Delaware Division of the Arts fellowship recipient, and Expressive Path’s Mentor of the Year. Kozinski is Art Editor of Schuylkill Valley Journal.
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