Throwing a Shoe at the Branch

Frank Matagrano


My last ditch effort is to throw a shoe
at the branch before having to choose
whether to walk away in grief or climb
the tree and try to separate the tangled knot
by force from the rest. There will be a loss
of thread either way. If I leave now, I will need
to adjust my memory so that the kite comes off
as the last great image willing to make any risk

to live, even if for just a minute, so that when I return
to Astoria and sift for an hour in the thrift
shop a few blocks from Steinway for the right
pair of reading glasses to go with my unshaven chin,
I can let the acrylic pipes and pocket flasks on display
along the counter have their way with me without fear
of being watched. Everything that has made me will be
on display here, even the baseball cap and thumb
ring, and I will be so overwhelmed by all

of this latitude that I won’t notice which parts
of me have been wrapped in a paper bag and taken
away, not until I have returned home at least
a hundred more times with a little change, a pack
of matches and the front page folded under my arm;
not until I am doing the dishes before bed, slowing
my breath, making far-flung connections with a reel
of string, remembering how the spine and spar joined
in the shape of a cross, looking up, hearing the wind.

Frank Matagrano