[I did something I could never discuss]
I did something I could never discuss
made an acquaintance
and embraced him in a phone booth.
While interested parties lurked
among free newspaper boxes
he removed his domino.
What to construe
from leather bracelets?
The impossibility of translation
from a phone booth to a churchyard
a gate painted white
a belfry with no bell
some culture with haceks
the sense of lolling in a park
from a churchyard to a community garden
heckling the rooster as it crowed.
We left the part we liked
jeering the rooster from a sward.
We reentered the garden with a script
but refused to expand on the vestiges of happiness.
A girl took responsibility for the garden
and plied us with background information
until her nervous guardian sent us back to the church
with a coat of arms where we were going anyway
as though under the influence of boreal fluid.
The songbirds of the yard
were about to be contaminated
by a new age concert.
With so little at stake
they praised positive thinking.
Paul Foster Johnson, "[I did something I could never discuss]" from Study in Pavilions and Safe Rooms. Copyright © 2011 by Paul Foster Johnson. Reprinted by permission of Paul Foster Johnson.
Source:
Study in Pavilions and Safe Rooms
(Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2011)