You are here…
by Kitty Jospé
The google says so—
gives you a red teardrop
on a map
that points you in…
some direction
………………………….points out to you
where you are, blinking
like a small flash of fish
gold-banding the perimeters
of its small glass bowl…
but I am here…
and hear the clack of jump rope
on pavement, the sound
of classmates singing I know something
but I won’t tell
remembering how we used to jump,
chanting what three monkeys
did on their peanut shell—
.……………………………………..how if we were lucky, we’d
………………………………………clear the rope so ready to lasso
………………………………………our ankles— and if we weren’t
…………..the lasso’s whistle would hiss
…………….no escape from my slinged trap
……………and its jaw would bite and burn
…………….our bare legs.
Jump to where you are. Open your eyes.
You don’t need google to tell you.
It doesn’t know the aliveness of here—
that breathing and heart-beating
aliveness of being just as you are.
Kitty is a published author and poet and leads Poetry Oasis at the Central Library. After years of teaching French, she turned to English, and received her MFA in creative writing in 2009. Kitty`s blog, O Pen!, can be found here.
RUNDELANIA 