For Now by James Richardson

Author:James Richardson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Parks Department

It had no other name, my paper-stabber,

an ice pick jammed thick end in a broom handle,

or the job I loved for a summer, paper-stabber,

spearing cups and papers from the asphalt

with a sidewise slide so the point didn’t blunt,

and slipping them into my bag with a gloved hand.

My task was wandering the small downtown,

leaving my lots unlittered as the dawn.

It was too early to care that no one saw me

in my faded Everything and work boots

even when they saw me. I could still be sure

I wasn’t what I wore, I wasn’t what I did,

I wasn’t even what I was, a college kid,

and anything could happen: I found

bright change in abundance, and once, a ten.

Was it really a whole summer, or just a few hours

one sunrise, or was it my whole life

(which, winter or spring or fall, was a kind of summer)

that it was enough to be taken for granted,

since I was the servant of a great beauty,

regarding all the world with a love

so distant and vague and impartial

no one could be burdened, no one could refuse?

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