To Leave At The Edge of Town

Never tell me when you
feel that pull, that tautness
that says: I must go.
Do not listen for it. That blank

sheet of a heart beats anyway.

II
To unload it; to sell wholesale
what you heard. All day long
that packed bag waits
by the front door.

III
You push out
against the empty page.
In your Buick,
away from here
out of the town that once claimed you.
Again and again you do it,
and always you come back.

IV
Always, always
the hands dwell on that remark;
always
there are echoes
in a suddenly empty room.

Colleen Keefe, 1989

So…now we’re really dipping into early writing. This project is (I think) about bouncing between decades, writing in the early 90s and writing now.

I was 21 when I wrote this, 31 years ago. It reads like something a newly minted adult with a love for language but no life experience would write, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what “the hands dwell on that remark” even means, and the phrasing feels awkward to these older eyes. But there are passages I still love about this piece.

On to the next post; something from this March, I think.