J U N E 1 9 9 4 ![]() LOOK HEREby Pamela Alexander![]() Next time you walk by my place in your bearcoat and mooseboots, your hair all sticks and leaves like an osprey's nest on a piling, next time you walk across my shadow with those swamp-stumping galoshes below that grizzly coat and your own whiskers that look rumpled as if something's been in them already this morning mussing and growling and kissing-- next time you pole the raft of you downriver down River Street past my place you could say hello, you canoe-footed fur-faced musk ox, pockets full of cheese and acorns and live fish and four-headed winds and sky, hello is what human beings say when they meet each other --if you can't say hello like a human don't come down this street again and when you do don't bring that she-bear, and if you do I'll know even if I'm not on the steps putting my shadow down like a welcome mat, I'll know. Pamela Alexander is the author of two books of poetry, Navigable Waterways (1985) and Commonwealth of Wings (1991). Copyright © 1994 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; June 1994; Look Here; Volume 273, No. 6; page 72. |
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