Diana Anhalt
Possibilities
To live without fuchsia, January’s sun, Spanish,
smoke-spewing Popocatepetl, the night watchman’s
warning whistle, driving both ways on a one-way street.
is impossible. It’s who you are, not where you are,
I tell myself, consoled by thoughts of starting anew:
the dough rising on a floured board, the first rung
of a ladder, Monday mornings, open doors. So what
am I waiting for? Fanfares announcing my entrance,
a gust of cold wind, fireworks, applause? No curtain
will rise on me now. I will never leave my footprint
in Atlanta’s wet concrete, nor carve my initials
on the trunks of its Chinquapin oaks. Poised
on the shoulders of my former self, I take a deep
breath. Prepare to plunge into tomorrow, a foreign territory.
Study its maps. Drive down Peachtree.
Previously published by Pale Ale Press
and in the chapbook Second Skin (FutureCycle Press, 2012)