ALL THE SNOW IN HOLLYWOOD

Tall and wild, like
a sunflower peering
over some bleached
fence. But today
stuck on a bus
beside a woman not
reading Absalom, Absalom!
All ride it sits
there, a beautiful
old edition, unopened.
In my lap, Susan
Cataldo never closes
and the words singe
will remain here heard
like Atsuko Tanaka’s
electric dress is seen
returning something
of me to myself, tall
and wild, an ibis
but something more
drably American. This
bus will leave me
in Washington unless
it’s headed to Philly
which I fear for
at least an hour.
Worse, I fear the deep
sadnesses of girlhood
which suffuse the ones
I love even as they turn
into women. But fear
to me, tall and wild
and boyish still, though
nearly thirty, it is only
a moment of holding
my breath and gone
on the wild, translucent
air that commends us
to move impossibly fast
through it and then
into the very future.
It does not scare me
that I have to dance
to get around the TV
couch, dresser, doorway
in our suddenly tiny
apartment. Only another
week and we will
inherit the ceiling
fan. Chinese ice
coffee hurtles through
my brain. The bus
now far from Philly
thank god. If I were
a philosopher, I would
say Singing is a means
to group identification
but I know better.
A song is a button
we press when we
want to thank god
even if we never have
believed in him or her
or it or all the snow
in Hollywood.