A poem walked down the street by Bonnie Proudfoot

A poem walked down the street

A poem walked down the street, checking
doorways and alleys to see what it could see.
It took off its headphones and heard
what everyone was listening to, it bought
the news and read the headlines. It watched
a falcon land on the ledge of a skyscraper,
and the steel grate rise on the bodega.
It waited for its life to start.

The poem went to the doctor for heartburn.
The MRI showed that it was pregnant
with other poems who were pregnant with
other poems, that the poem’s ovaries held
so many possible poems, that when
the poem laughed or hiccupped they bumped
into each other and couldn’t wait to be born.

The poem picked up an axe and felt the handle
in its hand. It ran its thumb along the
beveled edge. The poem felt purposeful,
like it was ready to get to work, to split
something apart, like it was ready
to view the core once that thing was split,
to grieve for the thing that it had broken.

Stop me if you heard this one: a poem
walked into a bar, asked for a shot and a beer.
The bartender said sure, coming right up, but
the poem backed away, thinking that was
too easy, that this somehow should have
been harder. The poem pulled out a quarter,
set it on the pool table. It took a few
practice breaks. Sometimes a ball
landed in a pocket. The poem opened
its heart, goldfinches flew out,
the jukebox danced in the corner.

*

Bonnie Proudfoot’s fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies. Her novel, Goshen Road (Swallow 2020) received WCONA’s Book of the Year and was long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway. Her poetry chapbook, Household Gods, can be found on Sheila-Na-Gig editions, along with a forthcoming book of short stories, Camp Probable. She resides in Athens, Ohio. https://bonnieproudfootblog.wordpress.com/