Amor fati

A street full of duplicate souls
is straining to rise above their comfort
to make a place for those without a home,
who are weary of their cardboard boxes
and willy-nilly clothing, blankets, floors
to be padded the street is so hard.

Pain shoots through an injured toe. The eye finds
the walking wounded freed of future wars.
Legs of steel, arms gone, others wheelchair bound.
You have no complaints. Let pain have its way,
you could take it at thirty, why not now
in your elder years, death that much closer.

Here I am where part of me is not . . .
Could be driving or flying far away.
Tried to tell me last night and I was gone.
No pity, cranky depths, you have a home,
you will have an urn, your wife will see to that.
After so many years, all that is left . . .

I could climb five flights, then, in record time.
I wrote only what I knew . . . not enough.
I said to myself, If I were born here
Lady Luck would look like Irish Cathleen:
She would stay awake to hear the streets swept,
and young, would drive her bright red car downtown.

Here I dwell inside with cats, dogs out there
waiting for the door to open or close.
I was always one to live with earth’s scars.
Hot sun after rain. Full moon up all night.
You have work to do and she lets you be,
your beloved. Half a century gone

since our fate was sealed. Did we love enough
to die happy? The man goes first. Woman,
this one, has been happy from the first day,
but I could not replace her dead father.
Amor fati, we love so much we love
our death. A horse is beaten in the street.

(24 June 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander