Dear Soul, I left you
Sitting at the bus stop,
Eating a meatball sub
On a day even the sky
Was the color of dust.
You stayed true, soul,
Somehow tracking me down
after the accident
When they wouldn’t let me
Fall asleep. And sleep
Was all I wanted.
It’s probably too late
To ask for some
Spontaneous energy,
Since I’ll only ask again,
Like passengers shouting
At the driver in Florence
Who made a wrong turn,
Who took off skidding
Around the corner
Past San Lorenzo
To make up lost time.
For every problem, something
Simple, like X. Dear soul,
I’ve spotted you
In the warehouse area
Behind the university,
Fingering the keys
In your pocket. You could have
Taken the green line.
You didn’t have to walk
All the way home.
Stunning poem, John. As a fellow alum of the Goddard College/Warren Wilson College MFA Program, I remember dancing the polka with you (on a dare) to the strains of “Mustang Sally” at a party during an alumni reunion. Wonderful to see “Dear Soul” on this website; I really admire your work (e.g. the poem in The New Yorker). Take good care.
All my best,
Linda Nemec Foster