At birth we’re given a name we wouldn’t choose.
Later we plod forward with tense faces.
The weather never improves.
There are regular trains to the city, but few trains out.
Our parents die to make room for the future.
The clocks on public buildings are often missing
or else wrong. Some days a hesitant crowd
of mothers in black gathers outside
the former opera house on the basis of a rumor.
Oh, how strange to wait to be examined
and not know to what extent the testimony
will change in the course of transcription.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of five poetry chapbooks, Death of the Frog Prince (2004), Heartland (2007), and Apocalypse Mambo (forthcoming) from FootHills Publishing, Strangers & Angels (2007) from Scintillating Publications, and the e-book, Police & Questions (forthcoming), from Right Hand Pointing.
