A number of American poets are adept at describing places and the people who inhabit them. Galway Kinnell’s great poem, "The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World" is one of those masterpieces, and there are many others. Here Anne Pierson Wiese, winner of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, adds to that tradition.
Columbus Park
Down at the end of Baxter Street, where Five Points slum used to be, just north of Tombs, is a pocket park.
On these summer days the green plane trees’ leaves linger heavy as a noon mist above the men playing mah jongg — more Chinese in the air than English. The city’s composed of village greens; we rely on the Thai place on the corner: Tom Kha for a cold, jasmine tea for fever, squid for love, Duck Yum for loneliness. Outside, the grove of heat, narrow streets where people wrestle rash and unseen angels; inside, the coolness of a glen and the wait staff in their pale blue collars offering ice water.
Whatever you’ve done or undone, there’s a dish for you to take out or eat in: spice for courage, sweet for chagrin.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2003 by Anne Pierson Wiese. Reprinted from Floating City, by Anne Pierson Wiese, published by Louisiana State University Press, 2007, with the permission of the author and publisher. Poem first published in West Branch. Introduction copyright 2007 by the Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
