2 poems

by chuck leary

something i always thought that someday i would find something somewhere on a dark highway on a rainy street in a dimly lit cafe on a lonely road on an empty subway car in milwaukee a motel room in las cruces new mexico standing over a juke box in manitoba or tokyo at a bus station in vladivostok something maybe not love or peace or illumination or divine revelation but something something i would only know when it happened

suitcase i was not worried about losing the group even though my black suitcase wth my new novel in it of which i was so proud was in the group baggage being taken to the bus downstairs under the curved marble staircase when the old woman with the round lined face leaned over to me and whispered “you are quite a character” and laughed softly she and another old woman began talking in french but so softly i could not understand them when i went down the stairs the bus was gone but i was not worried because “i knew the area” wide polished vistas in gleaming red and orange and white porcelain tunnels with a hint of rain and the cafeterias were closed i kept going in circles but was not worried except a little bit about the suitcase with my novel i was never in a dream which was more obviously “just a dream” but when i woke up i was surprised