Something Like Emancipation

The fever's mostly broken. As it has, the souffle's
Fallen flat, reduced to what it was at first: a simple
Mess consisting of a woman who's been kind and
Over-stirred a lonely man, and, in its aftermath,
I take my leave, and she, still kind, perhaps she's
Needy, makes me promise I'll be back. I will,
Of course, the fever being only mostly gone.

The city was, in ancient times, the place where
Souls, from slavery, serfdom, came to feel that
They'd been freed. It seems to serve that
Purpose still. The souls with wounds of other
Sorts, the skeptics, loonies, those who do not
Love in the accepted ways, still stream in from
Countryside to shed the shackles they have known,
And that is where I've brought myself. To live
As I did long ago, anonymous, another face
Which moves among a sea of them, and stops
In here to have some coffee, stops in there
To look at books, and plods the sidewalk,
Aimless, happy, fever lower, free.



Poetry by Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 62 times
Written on 2015-05-22 at 22:18

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