I have absolutely no idea what brought this on. When I showed it to my analyst, she got even more quiet than usual. Yesterday, I got a card from her announcing that she was retiring and moving “somewhere else.” She’s only 35.
SweetDreams
The five cobbled
roads that lead
into the town
square were laid
down more than
200 years ago.
A plaque stands
in stone at
its very center.
It has suffered
from hard and
giveless winters,
the sweat and stew
of short summers
and the caustic
of those thousands
that have read it
with their fingers.
I can recite
the names of 27
who founded this
small town, where
five hay paths
converged. They
had a mind for
joyful commerce
and a full life.
A host of people
come visit us
on Independence
day; for the story
of its founding,
is as old as
the nation’s,
and my leaned
recitation is
tolled as would
a drum be,
and offered up
before we scar
the sky and swim
in the scent
of the bombs.
After, and
in the dead of
dead of night, I
tell a tale around
the fire. A tale of
the sixth path, a
rootless road to hell,
and of the 28th
founder, who must
reside there. A 28th
name, scratched
urgently from the
copper plaque, be-
fore it greened to
age. I tell the
visitor and the
resident alike of
a future built
on promises unkept,
and of the recoming
of the sixth path,
and of the founder
whose name we
do not mention,
in the night.
The tale I tell,
and the joy with
which I tell it,
scares the children
straight and chills
the cold and aged,
‘til each and every
hunches deep in a thin
blanket and wails in
longing for the dawn.
Come visit me.
I tell my tale
each year. I
have told it
for far longer
than the eldest
can remember.
They say the
telling is so real
that those who hear
it will swear
I am as ageless
as the night
and was there,
at the founding.
Was there, they
say, was 28th
was that phantom
who rode the sixth
path, took the
oaths and laid
the cobbled stone.
Perhaps they’re right.
Come visit me.
Come hear my tale.
Come quickly on the night.
Stevie's Law 