12,146. DUMANTEL

DUMANTEL

I'm nodding. Again. There's

been too much of the antic

breeze in the space around me

and it just makes me bored.

I spent two weeks polishing

a car; and three months in

solitary so far. Someone just

came by to tell me what 

I've won. There's a billboard

on the highway now with a

message that reads something

like 'If you're new here, we can

help. Assistance. Tuition. Loans.

Placement.' It goes on like that

in an off-key way. I'm not sure

who reads it really  -  there are

lots of South Asians around,

and maybe it's for them. (Who

are they anyway, all these people,

and why can't I juts say Indians

and be done with it?). I think those

are all the same services we can't 

get. How's that go? I forget.

-

Certain things are like spectral

ghosts to me; stupidly so, like 

right there, by that sign  -  there's

the Metropark Train Station, and

beneath and alongside it runs the

Garden State Parkway. And then

there's MetroPark itself  -  a

corporate center for all sorts of

mysterious things; and hotels

and lodgings too. Banquet and

wedding halls. Parking for lots

of folks with cars. I never know

who they are, but I guess they're

here. It just goes on and on, and

even the nearby Social Security

offices are filled with those damn

people in robes. How's that go?

I forget? What did I miss?
-
I tend to think back, to see how 
this started. I can only remember 
a hazier  time. Cooper's Dairy, and 
all those cows where now the 
buildings stand and crowd.
There were often cows right
up to the fences, baying and
mooing, as is crying out. We
could put our hands in and
feel their wet noses. That's
all gone too  -  nothing here
left except the same cheap
cyclorama of traffic and men
in their tidy work clothes; lights
and buildings, trains and shows.
'The saris go by me from the
embassies....' I remember that
poem by Randall Jarrell, and I
smile back at the living nod
from 1969.
-
If you're here now, newly arrived:
We. Can. Help.