Rue | The Poetry Foundation

I was a traveler in my day

a business traveler, territorial

in the grassy gaps.

I sold bonds

to clients hungry for bonds

in the boundless sales call

door to door among

“folks.”

It was a job

I was born with.

I had a heavy sample bag, rubber-

banded stack of calling cards

and leather binder

(embossed)

opening upon a vista of

lamination, obligation

rumination.

I furnished

a nation to the chemical engineers and wives

of Schenectady, New York

over coffee, over roast beef

and piano, a kingdom, a nation, a

principality, landlocked state, aspirational acreage

spiritual fallout hideout.

I showed a picture of my boy

cross-legged in front of a backdrop

of a glaciated hanging valley

deep in the transaction

among handshakes and signatures

if it came to it

This is my boy, I said

Come to me.

I was a traveler.

Later I inspected

the nickel mines near Sudbury

telling my boy about the endless

sheer black subterranean drop

in the cage.

I was telling the truth

when I knew how to, as I had to

as sales required, as stewardship permitted, long before

disembodiment.

I kept a picture of my boy

in front of a cardboard tree and treehouse platform

tacked to the upholstered

partition above my desk.

Once I brought him to the office.

He stared at himself.

“I had a treehouse then,” he said.

Source: Travels of Marco (Four Way Books, 2016)