Anthony Piccione
Town Meeting
I show up early and sit in the back. Something’s jumpy
in me, from childhood, aching and alone; but I find myself
standing with the others. The old pledge to the flag
is still whole in me, safe among the keepers of words,
the heroes so carefully tucked.
The faces are enduring, open, unbeaten,
the white-haired stubble says so when they speak,
and the women in their solid, hopeful power speak.
There is a solitary rightness in what they ask.
I left and lost this country half a century ago,
felt it fade and vanish into a dot of time
over my shoulder, my time I went out from and wept for
into the world seeking a life. And it is here,
in a handful of unrelenting survivors, without guile,
or scheme, or the desire to live forever.
"Local Writer" and "Town Meeting" copyright 2002 by the Estate of Anthony Piccione, collected in THE GUESTS AT THE GATE, Poems by Anthony Piccione, with the permission of BOA Editions, Ltd.
Page(s) 23
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