There is much to praise
in a heaven for pigeons
and poets who like to wander
and wonder in circles,
and Dome’s Peanuts has its own
ars poetica, seeks no explanations,
simply assumes its steamed window
purity, knows to abide the chaos
of the city, Christmas bulbs enlightened,
circling the square of the buildings’
hypotenuse, allows for a certain
randomness of broken shells and memories,
the trembling scent of roasted cashews
and thirsting salt, look back, I look
back because the past is ever stubborn,
wants what it wants, switches times and
locations, or dons a mask to guide us
to hidden worlds.
All we can know is memory of dreams,
dreams of memory. But I snag this sack
of nuts, clutch it to my heart and brace
the cold. And now the snow is shattered
blue and green devils, the town a grace
of swaying stoplights, it is all a heaven
paved with peanut shells. What kingdom
of nuts might I plant come Spring?
I whistle the wind’s song and open the door
of the Sigma Theater, and descend
to all its secret lives, where the past
can remain forever without a ticket,
and the light is a sun-blinded angel.
Sean Lause is a professor of English at Rhodes State College in Lima, Ohio. His poems have appeared in The Minnesota Review, Another Chicago Magazine, The Beloit Poety Journal and Illuminations.
