Daniel Haislet

Walk to Work

Here is a place

where everything used to matter

And so, everything matters.

A casual blizzard blankets distant echoes

-the laying of brick, the clap of a breaking axle-

My walk to work is

not like my grandfather’s.

I am reminded by a judgmental

mourning dove who calls

from the hill-top

steeple behind me.

It’s absurd.

To return as anything is absurd.

To my right, off the new stone path,

over the high running river, and pressed

into the granite, row on row of converted mills.

Fossilized, petrified, brick and mortar.

If there’s anything to say;

Nothing holds its composure like red brick.

An afternoon gull inspects

multiple lane bridges. I stroll

effortlessly across racing water.

Hop the same fall-out-junkie

on the same concrete stair.

Gulp the lukewarm grainy end

of a pleasant French-Roast. Snow is melting fast today.

30 Alder and two benches in a row along the waterfront.

A hung book to dry on the line with socks.

I must have startled the sleeping clod.

He lobs a tangerine down at me. I didn’t fall in!

His pants are county blues. Always envious of an outlaw.

Ok, how ya doin’? Here we go.

What I wouldn’t give to let

A tangerine be a tangerine again.