June 01, 2023

[There's something to be said for having]

 by Diane Seuss
 

There's something to be said for having one plate, one spoon,

a fork, a dull knife, living out of a red suitcase, eating when

hungry, grabbing shut-eye when tired, you're high-natured,

Joyce James said to me when I lived in NYC, we were in a cab

on our Friday lunch break going to a record store, decades later

I see I was not high-natured, only wanted love, though what that

means I don't know, something about mystery, standing humbly

at the gate of someone else's mystery and hoping for the sound,

at least now and then, of the hinges turning, mystery now,

mystery then, as when I went up to a guy at the record store

to ask him who did the song "Refugee" and he said, "Me,"

and I realized after I found the album and looked at the photo

on the cover I'd asked Tom Petty who did a Tom Petty tune

I'd heard on the radio when I was hungry and tired and alone. 

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