blackbird online journal spring 2002 vol.1 no. 1

POETRY

T. R. HUMMER | For Dancers Only

I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town

Out this window on a moonless night, she can imagine
There might be a horizon, and the stars must know about it—
That's why they never stop moving. If she had the quick slide-arm
Of a trombone player, she could reach beyond the dark
She knows is a warehouse wall to take hold of it,
And that edge would cut her in half. That's the size of it.
The stations of her days are marked with pots of beans,
Plates of rice, the way the tired men lean on their elbows, eating.
They stink, but they have jobs. If an assembly line were long enough
It could stretch beyond the projects to some countryside
Where an unimaginable pastoral unfolds as far as the ocean,
Containing cows, perhaps, containing birds, containing trees.
Pack your bags, sweetheart. Or, screw it—just send for your things. 

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