My May Poem

It is 2009 and you and I struggle with the same things

we struggled with last year and the year before and

for example I read Simic’s translation of Janevski, Slavko

called the Bandit Wind and remember nothing about it

and yet I also read Iain Banks’s the Wasp Factory

and there’s something about that which I do remember.

Perhaps it’s because I read the former several months ago,

or perhaps it’s because there is rarely envigoration,

or perhaps it’s because Wasp takes place in Scotland

instead of the cruel cold cut region of Macedonia, where

love surely cannot exist and neither can humans, really.

But I thank Andrew for the exotic verse tome since surely

it has affected my life in some way beyond my memory.

I sit here getting ready to watch the Wire while beyond

the fence behind my house (which I never bothered

checking out since I’ve been here, since October) children

play on a court behind their school with the sun bright.

It’s 5:16pm but feels like noon and I’m afraid of dusk

and I am afraid that my inspiration will heave away

like a sigh around the block, air slowly releasing, children

going to their own homes, to be with their families, friends,

while I watch about Baltimore, read manuscripts, and

get ready to go get coffee with a communist downtown.