Two Poems by Patricia Russo

Invisible Man

My friend, who wasn’t at the memorial, called me.

“Do you remember that August it rained every day
and Billy spent all his afternoons
making life preservers for our imaginary friends
so they wouldn’t drown?”

I said I did, and she said,
“I think he’s home.
Not his last place, but the other one
that converted garage he painted lemon yellow,
do you know the place I mean?”

I said I did, and she said,
“My car got totaled, so I got to take the bus,
and now I’m walking past it twice a day
and I hear noises inside
like someone bumping into a table
or latching and unlatching a window.
There is a window, in the back wall,
do you remember?”

I said I did. And then I said,
It’s probably the wind
I’m sorry, but that’s what it is
I’ve been past the yellow garage, too
and no one lives there
No one can
They snagged the landlord for illegal conversion.

“That wouldn’t stop Billy and you know it,” she said.
“Not landlords or cops or locked doors
when he wanted to get something
or get something done. You know what I’m saying.”

I said I did, and then I said,
You haven’t seen him, though
because if you had, that would have been
the first thing you told me

“I don’t need to see him to know he’s there,”
she said, “I thought you would understand that.”

I said I did, but she sighed
and muttered something I didn’t hear
and said she’d talk to me later.

But I did understand.
That August of the interminable rain
No one had drowned, imaginary or not
And how do you know
the invisible man isn’t home?
It’s easier to blame the wind.

*

Time and Time Again

You need to keep it bandaged
until a scab forms

then treat it gentle
while the skin underneath
toughens to scar

this may take years
or centuries
or forever

but gentleness
does not have
an expiration date

*

Patricia Russo has had poems in Acropolis Journal, The Turning Leaf Journal, The Twin Bird Review, and Metachrosis Literary.