rex leonowicz
if we don’t tell someone, don’t tell the poem even,that we were here, no one can ever know;
the bodies of bars, parks, bookstores, apartments
destructed limbs loaded on trucks to the landfill;
no record of the exchange between one unseen
lover and the next—the glance up to the moon
so entire from a street-corner in astoria
that prompted the statement “falling in love
with you” just as we were—two people
a community, laden with history, lineage
of quietness, shame, brimstone, violence against us past
and present, we held latticed in our bodies like many
unblood family had, who loved before and keep loving
residually in this space though the landmarks are gone.
keep hurting residually though the landmarks
are gone. ancestry made up of moments
dissolving in real time; here today, gone… already.
we learn home is a place we have to hold
internally because it will likely be invisible if we tried
to visit it.
i don’t need anyone to share my concern
about everything always changing, dis-
appearance, maybe i am typical taurus
after all, fear of drastic
differences in the ways we can be ourselves
in public in private based on
who we socially located are; but no,
not typical because i want everything
to change, also. i’m not loyal
to this structure, to the shape of this present:
blow it up and start over.
bye-bye body, bye-bye private, bye-bye building, bye-bye public.
but i know it isn’t that simple—you can’t
readily explode an idea, or abstract notion of
who deserves and who doesn’t. what weapon
can deconstruct principle, a vision that isn’t
working?anyway, i don’t need anyone to share
my concern, but it concerns me when anyone
doesn’t.
sometimes i don’t care, i am just
a person walking trying to get some place,
not expecting the interruption of angry
white man staring me down in the mission staring
me down in the bart station staring
me down in muni car #2, san francisco isn’t
different, it’s the same white guy, the same
vision, same stimulus (me), different city: bay
area, new york asheville, new york new york,
new york etc. same difference he’s afraid of, though
i assure you, it’s NO BIG DEAL, i’m just trying to
go to the bathroom, to take a shower at the gym, it’s ok, i promise
it’s not an emergency, we don’t need an ambulance:
just a person trying to get someplace—like you,
not at all like you i am full of rage for you,
as you are full of rage for me, and yet
i hate knowing you have hurts too; empathy
is the string that ties me to you and the ambivalence,
too. you can’t feel it, you are too busy thinking
about yourself, the place inside you
threatened by a vision of change, does this make us
the same? no. i will never understand where
you’re coming from and you can’t figure out where
i’m headed: public transitory body just passing
as a location of constant questions.
