Deanna Erickson

Walking to the Library on a Snowy Day
all bad poetry was unfailingly sincere
-Harold Bloom

Colors, traps of the spectrum, each a world,
can do no better.

But I can follow infinite futures eternally.

A multitude, like cat's claws,
stretch out before me.

Today I'm searching
for potato boots
in the Northampton library.

I cannot retrace these steps.
I cannot uncome here,
but I can stay or go.
I can fold up this notebook and,
according to library policy,
check out this show by Johnny Carson.

I can clear the yellow wood,
so to speak,
in a bonfire of futures.
It will make no difference,
trapping red and yellow hyacinth explosions.

One ocean was one ocean in a blue ocean, and I – I took it.
I am utterly lost and silly, staring in the face of my own potential,
trying to hold it like a Polaroid picture.

I am walking home nowwith Johnny Carson shows,
writing with the ink of memory.
Nobody knows which future I should check out.

There is no scripturebut to keep on walking,
step by step,
with the faith of generations.

Deanna Erickson lives in Fort Worth, TX. She fronts the five-girl acoustical jam band, Erickson Detroit.