MARIANNE SZLYK

Dreams of MIT

Last night I dreamed
I returned to work
each summer,
giving up my time
for typing, filing,
never leaving my
metal desk
in case the phone
that never rang
would ever ring.

I appeared like
a ghost of the 90s,
wearing thick nylons,
padded shoulders,
straight skirts,
and knock-off perfume
from Woolworth’s,
things I would
never wear
in the fall.

This time I tell myself
I left this job
over twenty years ago.
I remember the walk
back from lunch
on the last day
at Legal Sea Foods,
my waist band
tight from chocolate
mousse.

My co-workers and I
finally talked
after my three years
of waiting
for the phone

until at Mass Ave.,
I turned right,
not crossing

with them,

not saying
goodbye.

*

Barefoot in Purgatory

The last time I went out barefoot
white-hot concrete and flecks
of stone stung my feet.  Humidity

draped over my shoulders

like a jacket that had been
a good idea in the morning.
Staggering beneath it,
I watched for shards of glass.  

A frat boy in Air Jordans, young enough 

to be my bleached-blond stepson,

buzzed up and down State Road 26,
killing time until Saturday night
by the river in a city without graffiti.

I was killing time as well until Sunday morning
when I could glide across the river
like a ghost once again.

*

At the Science Fiction Museum

Dust motes dance like they always have
over the brittle, yellowed paperbacks
that she cracks open.  But the sun
no longer streams through the window

past plain muslin curtains.  

Instead, it oozes, leaving a film
on the books and her fingers.
It reminds her of the ocean,
a being that creeps up these streets
in order to take back its territory.

She looks for this moment in the books

but finds only themes from the 1960s,
a time of garish colors, simple
shapes, and quick trips
to the moon and back.

She glances at the moon,

that speck of foam, that crust.
No one lives there.  No one goes
there.  No one ever will again.

She glares towards the ocean,

that creature
that waits for her, this house,
these books, all that will
dissolve in its acid bath.

She dreams of saving these books

from the ocean, from recycling,
even though they did not
predict this moment, even
though they are merely artifacts.

Because they are artifacts

like other museums’ bones
and arrowheads, like their
go-go boots and vinyl miniskirts,
she will save them.

*******************copyright Marianne Szlyk

In addition to being a very good poet, Marianne Szlyk runs The Song Is page, which beautifully combines poetry and music. She also teaches at Montgomery College.