A Small Exchange (poem)

A Small Exchange

A small exchange between the gutter and the feet

Wet hosiery and someone letting off corrosive mirth

And so having blocks to go

She felt uncondoled

I mourn with you among strangers

Waiting for a split head to hiss out the steam

That boils it

The curiosity of this fall of flint

Nick, nick, nick, everyone’s raw, isn’t enough

To make the chaining crowd cool its wrath

The wrong step forced by a veering in her path

She thinks sometimes she wakes up caring

Maybe in a dream recalled

On the screen without the barcode

Possible humans

Who had spoke their hearts in thumb-taps

Forgiving, as the whale might

Forgiving, bearing all…being wise

Here in life

Every noggin bobs on its crooked stalk

And shakes into the weak planet’s crust

An anticipatory groove

Positioning the intake at one remove

A Small Exchange

Boat Rentals (poem)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)