EVERY CITY IS MY HOME
Someone says my name
in another place as if they know me.
Every bus, every train is a homecoming.
I see my father in a stranger’s eyes
and my mother on a billboard.
Every city is my home,
mountains and prairies in the yard.
I tend to things the way this river
spreads itself in high-water season.
My clothes fit every occasion.
Every city is my home
though I am always going;
horns and sirens late at night
and a newspaper in the morning.
NO ONE SAYS…
“Correct me if I’m wrong,”
and means it.
‘L train rumbles by;
rumbling because it never
wants answers
to questions it hasn’t asked.
If I cross another bridge
will the river feel diminished?
The river heeds my concern
so we remain friends.
It will still freeze next month.
I pass an old building in demolition
and think it was a school, once.
Might have been.
I taste the chalk.
James Conroy is a writer and editor living in Chicago. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in BLUE UNICORN, THE CAFÉ REVIEW, XANADU, THE ICONOCLAST, FREEFALL, SPEAKEASY, and the THE GROVE REVIEW among numerous other distinguished journals. He has also published a collection and eight novels.
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THE CITY KEY 