Two Poems – Steve Subrizi

 

Broken Engagement U-Haul Poem

The U-Haul Office of Worcester, Massachusetts—
that is a sentence instead of a sentence,
but it is not purgatory. You can sure imagine

the souls of the desperate, trapped
in loops between lot and line until they learn
to feed their wallets to the endless well.

Sure, there are pennies all over the floor
and nobody around remotely in a mood
to pick up one more forsaken thing,

and a lone child is kangaroo hopping
who might never mature enough to be entrusted
with a creature that must be carried,

but still, none of these are spirit visions,
nor are the incessant wails of the dispossessed
unto the cashiers the last pleas of the damned.

They’re not. This is a place of business. Boxes
that could fit every pillow your head
ever shared with another head cost $1.35.

The fact that the trucks’ rearview mirrors
are gigantic compared to your usual car’s,
making your face appear like a wall poster

of a suicide idol that you forgot to roll for storage
is purely a practicality. Heading to a liquor
store to ask for crates they might toss

is a practicality, and it follows that grabbing
the inevitable quart of brain varnish is forgivable
at the least. It is practical to forgive yourself

the unceremonious disposal of the tiger rug
with hearts for eyes, which you fucked on once
but never grew to like, the mix CD’s that skip, the books

you only promised to open after they were hurled
at you spine-first. It is both forgivable
and practical to put most of a moving day’s energy

into the application of packing tape
so that the sudden stops cause less panic.
Better to vibe with bad country at the light.

It is often practical to leave. Sometimes,
it is practical to stay. We are still unclear
when exactly it is practical to come.