I wrote this poem in 1996, put it up on my old blog, and rereading it now, eyelids heavy with a week’s worth of sleep, I realized it had no title.
Who abandons these cars
and allows them to live anew:
cat motels, dust magnets,
flutes when the city’s hot winds
go through one cracked window
then another:
who? And who smears hasty hearts
on all those windshields,
made-to-fade messages of love
to Veronica or just anyone
passing by? Take a number,
then any street,
find that door and knock on it.
Whoever answers can be
the woman who is always the question,
freshly arrived from the airport,
smelling of lavender and
sex on the beach.
“Who are you?” she asks, and
dizzy with love, you can’t answer.
Was it Robert Frost who said the title is the clasp that holds the necklace together?