No Man’s Land, by Martha Ronk
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Between Eagle Rock and downtown drops away
before the freeway loops
and manzanita signs off reddish
in the pale light before rushhour.
Around the curve, around the bend
where no man’s land carves itself
into a city frail as insistent.
Tatooed over his upperleft he can’t remember how he got it
how he ended up in Elysian Park
from which the police were shipping him
home by bus in time for Christmas.
From “State of Mind” by Martha Ronk (Sun & Moon Press: 74 pp., $10.95) Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.
