Erin E. Post

BETWEEN

       I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.
              --Albert Camus

This city: I can't understand
this light this heat how
humanity melts into
subways, sidewalks, skyscrapers.
Smoke, gates, browned rivers,
wrought iron bridges.  Streetlights
flicker.
             The whole of life can be summed up in an image.
I study that movement:
these drunk stumbling men grasping
the firmness of body,
each breath is enough.
Dusty streets stain their lungs.
Their despair, its silver clay,

molds my words.
This language: was it once mine?
These syllables traded for different tongue
inflection, awkward accent.
I recall when words meant less,
trifling means to speak, not
tools to carve a gypsy father
out of listless streets.
             We must give the void its colors.
I walk on, as
rain greys buildings into
pavement.

You: his spitting image,
my mother said.
She sat draped in a linen shawl,
her hair loose, silk
against my cheek.
I gripped my wrist, my blue-ink veins:
A stranger gave me this blood.
             It took him a week to die.
He fell with other men groping
toward shore, I felt
their hands shifting sand.
My mother's fingers on my forehead:
you have his language etched
in your eyes.

This gypsy wandering
             To you
This tin grey sky
             Who will never be able
The sidewalk damp with rain
             To read this book.

Date of Birth:	August 29th, 1979
Location:	Plattsburgh, New York
Email:	Dalloway42@cs.com

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