RUNNING
In the dream I am
running. I am looking
for something — my car
parked God knows where,
in the City of Recall:
the cinema gone
dark with the flickering
hours, the candy store
next door, spiders
in the windows. My legs are
lead, there is no air;
something I cannot see
breathes in the alley.
As I draw close
to what it is I'm seeking,
the elm of childhood
spreads its limbs again, grass
grows between the flags
over its roots,
the church my father preached in
peels in the sunlight.
My car is parked again
under the shattered pear,
and if I could,
I would move my feet to run
heart pumping, slowing
like an old film flickering
over a story
that runs backwards
when I stop and close my eyes
to catch my breath.
From The Familiar Stranger, poems by Lewis Turco, Scottsdale, AZ: Star Cloud Press (www.StarCloudPress.com), 2014, ISBN 978-1-932842-78-4, paperback. Available from all booksellers.