You arrive in a sentence
where you would like
to stay, but you are told
to move on to another,
so you do and wish only
this time to keep to imaginary
places. You are not
given Zanzibar or Timbuktu
but Paducah were two
soldiers compare figures on
a motel balcony. You
note the exits and a sign
announcing no free breakfast.
One says, “You look good, man,”
to the other, who nods. Though
you had always understood
figures differently, you
respect their loyalty
to a cause impossible
to understand. “I've been
through two surgeries and
still smell as fresh as
a piano,” the admired one
says. The moon is quartered,
and the air is mild. You
sleep in a rented bed
overlooking asphalt. Through
the vents your German
professor repeats, "Ich komme
over and over until your
True Being separates
from a cough that will not
go away. The professor in
the morning seeks out your eye
as he slips out the door,
“To be in a sentence,”
he asserts, “is by
nature to be passing through."
From The Tiniest Muzzle Sings Songs of Freedom. Copyright © 2019 by Magdalena Zurawski. Used with permission of the author and Wave Books.