Classic Poem

You can't even buy a soda. You can only
see these things, see a mother steer
her son to the car, his head cocked
licking his ice cream.

Earlier, driving, trying to keep
between two cornfields, I couldn't see myself
into a map, couldn't be anywhere in it,
though I knew all the patient states
between us.

Pigeons sit high on a mill's peaked roof,
spaced even as beads. They can stand that
close to each other, but looking at them
you wouldn't know it. Would you.











From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 186, no. 3, June 2005. Used with permission.