Friday, March 24, 2023: Terry Wolverton's 'You Up?" and "Where you'll find me"

 

’You Up?

My ringtone is a song from my libretto,

“The Opposite of Fear is Love.” It’s the eleven

o’clock number, but I’m not used to hearing

it in the middle of the night. I often

keep the phone turned off. I’m relieved it doesn’t

wake my spouse; she gets up early, works long days.

But no, she hovers in her tenth dream as I

fumble the holler box to my ear. “Hello?”

my tongue clumsy. I’m shocked to hear your timbre,

stunned to realize I’d forgot its cadence.

So relieved am I to hear from you, I don’t

think to wonder how you’ve managed it. You weren’t

good with your cell phone here on earth, even one

with big numbers and extra volume. Even

the cordless proved too taxing at the end; you’d

lie in the hospital bed I’d installed in

the living room and howl my name, phone clutched

in your hand. What device have you mastered that

allows you to ring me now? In what time zone

is the Beyond? You don’t care about waking

me, as you didn’t those weeks when pain’s steel blade

slashed deepest in the middle of the night. You’d

cry out ’til the sound of my name pierced slumber;

I’d stumble downstairs to dispense a pill, rub

your legs until you tumbled into rest. Since

you left, my sleep is fitful anyway; I

ruminate on questions I forgot to ask.

Now in this waking dream they once more elude

me, scurry like roaches from my mind. But words

aren’t the point. It’s enough to lie in the dark

and breathe with you. At least, I’m breathing, night tucked

around me, pillow bathed in the phone’s soft glow.

© 2023 Terry Wolverton

Where you’ll find me

I admit, it isn’t easy. Around here

things are always changing.

Different roads bear the same name—

Cazador Street/Drive/Court,

winding into hills at a precarious pitch,

leading to dead ends or entirely other

neighborhoods, no room to turn around.

Some thoroughfares, like eager starlets,

shed their given names—a stretch of Sunset

becomes Cesar Chavez; Rodeo Road (not Drive)

is now Obama Boulevard. Second-hand shops,

the candle store, once landmarks, are leveled,

replaced by indistinguishable high-rises;

their poker-faced facades mask what’s inside.

Chinese priced out of Chinatown, punk clubs

and artists’ studios succumb to high-end galleries.

There was once a trainyard where hobos

camped under the bridge—remember hobos?

Now it’s a state park with landscaped lawns,

paths of decomposed granite, shiny restrooms

the homeless can’t use after dark.

It’s easy to get lost in this erasure. Googies and Blairs,

Tower Records, Atomic Café are but debris,

nothing to navigate by. I might once have said,

“Go past the laundromat and come up the hill,”

but now, I can only offer, “Follow the hummingbird,

the music of jasmine, the slanted shadows

of afternoon” to arrive at my front door.

© 2023 Terry Wolverton