by Miriam Sagan
Veteran
He doesn’t live
in a fleabag hotel
on the Tenderloin
eating off a hotplate. (Those are torn down).
He doesn’t live in a culvert
vagrant camp
in a state park
in Pennsylvania
or in a tract house
with an angry wife
outside of Tucson
in the Sonoran desert.
He lives nowhere
let’s be honest
and call him homeless
walking both day and night.
He’s shot heroin
between his toes
to not leave a mark.
He’s been drunk for centuries.
He liberated a concentration camp
and beat his children,
he became a bigamist
and beat those children too.
In the Mekong
he did things that have no name
that he can’t remember
but he did it for his brothers.
Now at least he no longer
has to head into the smoke
now at long last
he can walk away from burning cities.
He meets an old woman
at the crossroads
someplace vast and flat
out on the county roads.
This woman looks ordinary
she isn’t selling
or buying
or tending a little descansos shrine.
Once upon a time.
Scry
I saw my older self
conjured her, so to speak
although even in the mind’s eye
this seemed dangerous.
What if I saw a corpse?
Or a handful of ash and bone chips,
or worse, regret’s angry ghost?
She greeted me with an affection
I can barely conjure for myself
embraced me in her lap
stroked my hair.
She said: “Rest up, Darling.”
Then she said: “Arm yourself.”
The goddess at the crossroads
is herself a crossroad
solar X
the right hand
trying to know
what the left hand is doing.
“What’s new?” she asks.
“Troy has fallen,” he says.
“Saigon, too.”
“Chicago? Detroit?”
“A long story, but they’re still standing.”
“Here,” she tells the soldier
as she takes off her saffron cloak,
“this is the cloak of invisibility,
one that all old women wear.
You need it more than me.
And a piece of advice—don’t drink the wine
those princesses will offer you.”
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Haha,” she says. “Nice try.
Why don’t you guess?”
“Yew tree?” He tries.
“Alphabet? Forest fire? Grandmother?”
“Wrong,” she says.
“But you can just call me
On-The-Way.”
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