[ToC]

 

Jay Surdukowski

WORD SEARCH

Like going to the vet, I wag and nudge,
paw your jacket before you leave me.
The terminal is steel and green.
You drive off slow as if it's a movie.

Nothing's so sad as a Midwest airport.
At the gate, the woman next to me
focuses intently on her word search;
she might be a substitute teacher
or a school lunch worker.
Her nose wrinkles mouselike at the clue,
Puzzle 79, words about "Garage Sales."
She has not circled any in a while.

In my plane reading, Robert Lowell
has just terrorized Bloomington,
screaming he was the Holy Ghost.
It took five Hoosier policemen
to restrain the poet while
some decent folk looked on.

The word searcher stares for a while,
she's circled one or two in an hour.
Is it refusal of error that breaks our life?
In the airport advertisement,
the bare chested boy nestles
into a girl's smooth shoulder.
They are the color of peach crayon.
Somewhere west, you drive home.
She finds the words one-by-one.

 

 

____

Poets are always falling in love.