Philip F. Clark
The Emigrant
I could not watch, had long stopped listening.
Slept—or tried; some distant place to go
in unreadable dark. We always dream,
but don’t remember some. Remember
nightmares most. Countries of the mind,
these kinds of travel. My phone light
buzzes on the nightstand, or at least
it seems in my retinal miasma—I pick up,
Dublin—“Please, god, don’t tell me!” Fall back,
sleep—“A dream” I think, as I bite knuckles,
grind teeth; no private Idaho. How far
and to what shore in morning or night
away from thought or action? I wake again,
shake and slough another phone buzz.
“Hell has arrived.” I know.
I know, I know, I think. I know, I lift,
wash, eat, drink—I think: Copenhagen?
Nova Scotia? Christopher Street? Trafalgar Square?
Where? Here. Right here.
Philip F. Clark teaches Advanced Poetry in the English Honors Program at City College, New York City, where he received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing in 2016. His first collection of poems, The Carnival of Affection, will be published by Sibling Rivalry Press in Fall 2017.
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