Walking Out

Small breasts & slender waist in a striped

jersey dress, hers is the pear shape magazines

say leads to a long life. When she walks off

the passenger bus, her legs are sturdy, likewise

her hips. This woman could wander country miles,

haversack strapped to her back.

You, on the other hand, with your bad habits

of reading sad poems & letting your mind wander,

will never trek the Appalachian Trail or take

a Tibetan walking tour. You’ll wait for traffic lights

to change, scribble “epiphany” in notebooks, insist

it’s the personal & only the personal that matters.

A woman boards a passenger bus a country mile from

Kandahar. Her legs are sturdy, likewise her hope

for a long life, though just as easily, American troops

will waste this bus with magazine fire, a tragic loss of life.

You might strap slender hope to your breast, insist the

world splits into feet & inches. You could wait here, count

the I I I I I s on the ceiling, palimpsest of dying & living.

Or, on the other hand, walk out of this wayward American

century into loosestrife, dandelion, wild pear.

It could be that simple, couldn’t it.

alison meyers

Alison Meyers ©2009. All Rights Reserved.