Frank Matagrano

STANDING UNDER A STREET LAMP ON THE CORNER OF BRICE COURT

I am trying to decide whether to walk one more time
around the block or just return home and let the puppy sleep
in the kitchen to contain an accident.  I couldn't tell you how
I wound up here after all of these years, long after my wisdom

teeth were pulled; long after I kissed a girl for the first time
in the school gym, dumbfounded that the tongue went
in like that, and ruined when it had to come out.  I doubted
the forecast, but snow fell as planned, and me still with no coat

made in Paris, you know, the black one that goes all the way
down to the knees with an inside pocket to conceal the American
cigarettes I love.  What is the French word for 'salt,' for 'flake,'
for 'drift'; what time is it there; how long does a tourist suffer

from jet lag.  The puppy has a tilted ear and a little tag
dangling in the wind.  His tongue catches snow
without even trying, his eyes wide and dark enough to hold
a hundred questions about anything, yet not asking one.

Location:	New York City and Chicago, Illinois
Email:	matagrano@yahoo.com
Website:	http://www.fmatagrano.com/
Publications:	3AM Magazine, Artemis Journal, Exquisite Corpse, Cross Connect, Literary Salt, atomicpetals, etc.
Books:	Moving Platform, How to Breathe in Case the Plane Goes Down

- March 2002 - Dear Anna Sonnets in a Land of Prose Calling The Minnows Oxford Blue Ficus Aurea Playing it Back what we will plant unto the breech some more Ars Poetica Elegy For My Mother Standing Under a Street Lamp on the Corner of Brice Court Escaping the terrible fish Sadie song for stephanie it will always be the season of famine somewhere Adieu - John Turner's Best Of - the disgruntled women's chorus sings accompaniment on the beta male blues How to Build an Impossible Staircase Trying to Raise the Dead How to Kiss The Grassfires of the Resistance Rishikesh