Homecoming
       

I'm searching the used section. November
whips another flyer in the window
advertising Another Average Brass Band
playing at The Granada. A couple hurries inside
jacketed in leather, collars flipped up;
the bookish clerk mumbles hello
& everything feels like the season

has never changed. I pick up Camus,
a to-do list falls on dust & pine,
demanding: potatoes & salt,
dry-cleaned clothes, a paper
on Sisyphus, sex with Ryan.
The sun goes down right
on time. I smile too long

as the clerk gives me my change
& bags the beat-up copy of The Death
of Captain Marvel. Outside, the cold
slides a knife in my bones
& wakes me like it should
any creature. Get used to it
I hiss between teeth, bite the frost
from my lip. If I could I'd devour
the winter. Every season, every
prairie & flint hill, every star
& leaping synapse demanding

remember the dog's stupid look,
the countless phone calls,
my friend gone somewhere
I can't won't yet follow,
the service studded with strangers
wondering why I'm not there,
but shit—I'm here now, ain't I?
With another day to kill, another bar to hit
before heading out tomorrow,
this comic my only souvenir.

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Copyright © 2021 Gary Jackson All rights reserved
from origin story
University of New Mexico Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission