Password, a poem by J. Allyn Rosser

Password

There must be some reason my daily walks
lead me into streets like this
with carved doors that don't open
into homes or businesses or even bars,
but into dim interiors no one ever
enters or leaves. People hurry by
to stare at me, not because I'm a stranger
since I come here all the time,
not because my lips are still half open
with the last thing I'd meant never to say,
not for these letters I keep dropping. They see
something's wrong.
Or can they hear it
in the cyclic uncertainty of my gait,
the way I do and don't care
about the cracks, the dog shit,
the puddles that soak my stockings
inside my only shoes left, which wobble
and squeak now, so full of wrong steps.

But what do they hear?
And don't I hear it too when I'm off guard?
I like to think it's a woman behind me,
sighing, almost but not quite wailing;
I know better than to turn and look,
and I turn.

Inside the machine of my life
there's friction, a frozen bearing,
a 24-hour malfunction. I've shut my eyes
while walking, shut them deeply,
and with my fingers pressed them
further shut until they hurt,

the way you'd lean on a reset button.
But there's no stopping this machine,
which turns out not to be for making
cunning useful articles with smooth handles,
not for moving smoothly toward a destination.

Even if I had a destiny I could afford
it wouldn't take me there, not this life,
always steering me to the next brick wall
I can flatten my back against,
down this or that side street after a man
with purposeful stride who almost looks
like someone, who quickly turns the corner
just as I'm about to reach him, then whisks
into mist.

I've had half a mind to lie down
right here on the curb until this thing
either comes right or conks entirely.
Yesterday a mounted policeman pulled up
in front of the post office to tease
the pharmacist's daughter just as I was
pausing there to erase my return address
from a package I needed stamps for,
and his horse, a gorgeous bay, lowered its head
and nudged me softly in the ribs three times --
as if it knew.

So at least it's narrowed down, we're getting
somewhere. Something needs fixing,
or replacing (just keep walking)
something's not right here,
some letter not written
or not received
or at least not in time,
and in the rain, under my leaky umbrella,
and all the words and especially
that one word
blurred.

by J. Allyn Rosser

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