Train Ride

She said she'd lost interest in
the personal—no it wasn't that—
she'd lost interest in anything
the personality wanted to do?
And yet early, all those names
and now these voices. She said,
"I like reading from this.
It's like, what I like to do."
I try to imagine wiping the scum
off a life with my fingertips
as on a bus window, saying,
"Oh these old words? They're like
what I like to do," brushing them off
the end of the endtable like crumbs,
like I was born to do it
then christened to do it again.
We can't go anywhere to do this life
like we want to do it (open field,
blank mind, wind hurrying through)
except perhaps very far north
or very far south
but I don't like to be foreign either.
I like to be familiar.
"It's boring to outlaw words."
Maybe I need roots
dangling from my hips
in search of freshwater
or oil. Oh what is a poet in Chicago, IL
on the ninth of April in the year 2008?
And if I have something interesting to say,
whom shall I say it to?