Running

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.