Looking for Duke By Keith W Gorman

I've been out searching, beating down

all the old boulevards where we walked:

the lakefront, the parks, the avenues. 

I've even combed the Adler Planetarium, 

hoping to find you in a fiery galaxy, 

far from the leashes of the big city life—–

a raveled mop in the ragtime breeze.

Last night I moved the heavy armoire, 

looking for you huddled between the dust 

bunnies, gazing back with pricked ears, 

but the L train left twenty years ago, fading

into that black gorge below the ground.

I remember the slow ride home, knowing

I made a stupid mistake. When I signed 

the papers, you stood alone in a small cage, 

shuddering in your skin: the fugitive stray 

fondled by strangers. Not given a day; never

taken to say goodbye to the stone entry lions 

keeping watch over the traffic jams. Never 

curling up—–never again—–in the crook

of my neck. Never licking a drunk at Kasey’s

pub, nor hiking a leg on a roommate's rug.  

The lull of the L train echoes night and day,

its clackity rhythms drawing me away.

 

Keith W Gorman is a poet, writer, guitarist, and factory worker living near the foothills of The Great Smokey Mountain National Park in Eastern Tennessee.