Sisters in Perpetual Motion

Urban wanderers,

unhoused and unhinged, they are rapt in

a perpetual motion of paraphernalia

trundling from Kendall to Central, Harvard to Porter.

One in a gentleman's greatcoat

worsted gabardine and fur collar

hold a sidebar discourse with herself, pushes her metal

shopping cart, argues with the invisible

censorious justice of Mass Ave.

Parallel to traffic, she retains a centrifugal

relationship to the lanes she occupies, strides

away from the main, parent axis of rotation,

abjures public transportation or charity and turn backs

early evening, cold, coincident with those of us

not charged with a dilemma of roads

She sleeps in undocumented doorways and upon grates and

in neighborhood parks upon benches and propped

on soiled cushions she pushes,

and level her sleep toboggans through the cantonments

of temporary habitation. I wake in a white Victorian.

She wheels her cart in time-lapse storefront glare.

Sponge of pustuleed foam bedding. Torn lining of a brown coat.

Thus I remember my sister, her unbuilt days

of compulsive walking before she decamped

to clinics and psych wards. Her walkabouts. Her looseed speech.

Her terrorist phone calls and the tyranny

of her jurisdiction: thus, beleaguered,

she engineered a seige and won Timber up a frame dwelling,

I said. Explain yourself to yourself. In the extremity

the cops broke down the door of an without contents house to find her.

Copyright World rhyme Incorporated Jul/Aug 1997

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