Poem with Merry Leigh in It

The brown rings of my sister’s curls
catch and toss green light around
from the lamp that hangs outside
the Green Light Café. We are already

on our way. To what or where?
Between icicle-light buildings,
a giant Christmas star clings
to our town’s only telephone tower.

We cross the street without looking.
Her air of disapproval as I fill
the chilled air with buttery
pipe smoke. She straightens her

pink jacket. Amazing, how I can live
in a memory having lost its
destination. Who threw the party we
were angling towards through neighborhoods?

Had she bought the scarf new
she snagged on the bare hanging
sticks of a poplar? I feel
we didn’t stay for long,

but I still remember the heart-snag
of anticipation, seeing chimney smoke
carried sausage and cider-scented from the house,
the slatted light on the yard we entered.

Mounting the porch by an anonymous
staircase, I pass out of my own mind’s grasp.
And it only makes the party sweeter, that I
possess nothing fully, not even myself.