John Grey _____________________ three poems

 

I HAVE BUT ONE TRUE HOME

 

Here is the house in which I lived.

There is the quiet spot

where I could inhabit the darkness,

a womb where I was moved into

after my mother’s could no longer hold me.

Other people live there now.

A woman waters the garden.

Kids play in the yard.

A small dog barks at me,

like I’m some burglar casing the joint.

I’m really casing the past,

a different dog, different woman,

and one of those kids,

the smallest one, is me.

The eyes have done their job.

Now memory takes over.

THE TRUCKS AT NIGHT

I'm going home to sleep
but who knows where they're headed.
Sleep could be Richmond or Pittsburgh,
and maybe there's no sleep,
just uppers and the monotony
of route 95.
Maybe there's a truck stop or two
along the way
where they can park these roaring behemoths
and pass the dead of night
with fellow creatures,
taste the coffee,
see the trips they've made,
have still to make,
in the red of other trucker's eyes.
I think I've got it bad
until I read of miners stuck in hell-holes,
chemical workers breathing cancer
on the job,
or see these weary road knights
rattling down the highway,
full tank of diesel,
head almost on empty.

 

WHY TRY TO CHANGE ME

I share an apartment with a gelded dog.

I was in a long-term relationship.

It broke up a year ago.

Her mother was a harridan of the old school.

I did the best I could for her.

Not enough of course.

And I do see her now and then

at the local hangouts,

We refer to ourselves as friends.

(We’re not really but there is

no personal noun to go with indifferent.)

 

My dog looks on me

as everything there is

and more besides.

And I was the one who had him fixed.

I was once shacked up with

a series of misunderstandings.

Now I live with an irony.

Once I was on my own.

With no nouns to speak of.