In Lansing
_____________________________________________

Black coffee, for starters, and sun
sneaking through a scribble
of cloud. Holidays over and still
in from out east: you and me,
Kay, and cold day-old light—
dishwater or thereabouts. And pale,
the sky through these trees, blue
that’s almost not blue; a bird’s egg
or as if colors were verbs—

oranging, bluing—and you hadn’t
said blue. Who loves January?
You see the steeple but the bell’s
still broken, half-shined with ice.
And someone has to unplug
and take down these tangled strings
of lights, get the hose to spray
the salt off the Buick.
Three fingers of grass show up
through the snow. This is
hope? They’re brown and yellow,
dying or dead. Couldn’t

we cover all this more happily
in a kitcheny little still life? Freckled
bananas, fuzzy cheek of a peach,
the colander and the cheese
grater and the cheese?
Any waxy red wheel will do.
But already you’ve got
that look, like wherever you are
you wish you’re someplace else—
though specific or
otherwise, you don’t say. I say

I love how snow falls
on gray snow. And at night
you can see the stars here,
but really, how long do you want
to look at stars? If you say it
and say it and say it, even happy
sounds meaningless. Or sad or sorry
or sublime. My favorite word is now.
No, now my favorite word is
the one you’re about to say.
“Wish is a funny word,” you say,
pouring coffee. “You don’t
hear it much anymore. Must be
we all got what we wanted.”

From Subject to Change by Matthew Thorburn

New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University, Dept. of English,
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
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