Only Here

You do not want to live inside
these circumstances. Falling
prey again to the familiar
promise of that dance of dreamy

analyzing – whose alluring aim
is to deny all obfuscating dull
particulars – you press to sense
the purpose underneath the surface:

pulse beneath the skin: pursue
the putatively golden note beyond
the din: as if reality were subterfuge:
a layer cake whose inward dark

ingredients alone conveyed the truth.
And so you ruthlessly ignore
the endless more of sitting in
this vinyl blue-and-green Long Island

Railroad’s air-conditioned car –
affording glimpses out its windows
of a purgatory made of glare-lit
unavailing brown – as it slinks

farther from the sharp availing
magic of your blessed town.
What sounds like drunken howl
proceeds from somewhere in the front –

devolves into a mournful grunt.
The man with MS in a wheel-chair’s
point is blunt. No other place,
no far or near. Only here.


.