Twenty-Two

Moissac, France
I walked to the baker’s
and thought about the bread.
And at the corner store
the butter. Four kinds of butter!
I bought them in order
of saltiness. I studied slang
in secret. I said little.
And my students were
so beautiful
I couldn’t teach a thing.
Instead I made them sing.

Twenty-two. Nothing to do.
New York had vanished,
Connecticut, too.
My students grew hair
and got haircuts, grew hair
and got haircuts, and sang.
I’d lie in bed and masturbate
and wonder why I’d come,
and come and come again
and then rise for some bread and a run.

Does the village persist? It must.
Right now, someone hums “Nowhere Man”
and thinks of that shy teacher from — 
Manhattan? New Orleans? Bel Air?
And she brushes her lengthening hair.

Source: Poetry (March 2015)