Want
by A.J. Rathbun

In Seattle, late June, it's light
at 11 o'clock at night as I walk
the long road home from downtown, up
Denny Way to Westlake Avenue into Fremont,
after getting to the bus stop with no money,
and I have found the way to want.
A car drives by playing rap music,
Tupac Shakur, who wanted. I'm not
supposed to understand, but when the bus
passes me without stopping
I pull want from my pocket
and want speaks in a voice like want spoke
to Tupac, like it yells across Queen Anne Hill
to you and talks to my sister, buried
34 years ago. Let me believe the dead want
this poem. Let's think that everyone wants
to hear what will appear. Let's agree
this poem will figure out what questions to ask,
like a sparrow pecking fresh seeds
from rot. Like a random collect call
that ends in the afterworld thanking
the Lord who, I think, never wants. But want is
an insatiable passion, and faith is,
while reason remains a mere shade,
allowing me the patience to fill
this page with want and words, like soldiers
filling Cellini's mouth slowly with earth,
thinking he was dead at twenty-six. The past
is a foreign country. We in the twentieth century
want the whole truth gathered together
once and for all in a band called Easy Consensus,
a safety that should stop me from thinking
you will be attracted here, a vacant parking lot
a half mile from the intersection
of Westlake and Fremont as want retains
its own agenda, craving questions.
Will you be in bed tonight?...

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A.J. Rathbun lives in Seattle. E-mail: detonator36@hotmail.com