there were reasons

not understood then
but clear now
of how it was
to be alone
so alone
even mute
among peers

at risk
was my well hidden
teenage vulnerability
a pinsetter with quick hands
hopping between the lanes
squeezed between
turnpikes & freight trains
coughing acid smokestacks
i looked at the many roads
as invitations

we hitchhiked one morning
& crashed one saturday afternoon
in akron
found some couches       unitarians
& upper middle-class trappings
i thought everyone
but the thin man
was missing the obvious
it was prettified as needed
but there were
no truths

and the soldiers
on their way to death
knew by instinct
how the lies
were constructed
to save the bigger lies
& it became plain
that my body
would never mesh

ben got off work
at j & L steel
& brought eleanor
and hash
& zucchini
to my frying pan
and we laughed
at the idea that
friends last
through mornings
& revolutions
even when
(especially when)
no one has
any answers

ben tried his dissertation
in the soot
on the window pane
eleanor went back
to westchester county new york
the summer heat
broke
like an unexpected monsoon
waking up the voices
lost & found
trailing off
neath fires
seeded by clouds
& restless bodies

and what burned away
only
were the phony words
of gray shark-skin suits
the renaissance had speared its own
edifices
seen for what they were
& soon forgotten

but the coal barges kept pushing
heaped on autopilot
past the abandoned and forsaken
sewers overflowing
new models of the same vintage
deconstructed blooming mills
left only with riverbanks
of willows
breathing
speaking
for us all

--- e b bortz