IF I CAN MAKE IT THERE

by Carol Coven Grannick

 
Ran down stairs 
leaving loneliness
of a first day, no friends here
throat clogged
crushing unwept tears
away from smoky stench
of a lying dorm roommate 
who checked off I don't smoke
who laughed at my anger
called me a hick from Chicago
Ran down stairs to find a secret
waiting on Broadway and 116^th:
an aching for a mother and father 
sisters and brother
I couldn’t wait to leave behind
how to tell them
the city I’d longed for
vomited its welcome
exhaust fumes too close
sun without trees dirty hot
noise of too many voices
too many car horns
sirens pushing into traffic?
Eyes run across garbage-grey blocks
I chewed sugar-depleted                                                
Bazooka bubble gum
rolling and reshaping 
at tongue’s tip
blowing one huge pink bubble
in defiance 
but stink and belch of sewer gas
covered it, triumphant.
I am still, the bubble a sculpture
in the filthy air.
I cannot live here 
then I place fingers
to the mouth of the perfect
pink sphere 
pull it out with care
and drop it
into the overflowing
trash on the curb.


* * * * *

Carol Coven Grannick is a poet, children's author, and former clinical social worker whose debut novel in verse, Reeni's Turn, won Finalist in the Katherine Paterson Manuscript Competition and Honorable Mention in the 2018 Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award. Her poetry for adults and children appears in a broad variety of print and online magazines, and she has received two Illinois Arts Council grants and a Ragdale Foundation Residency for her work. She experiences her poetry as "bendable to its purpose," reflecting wonder and joy, anger and activism as it marks the days and meanings of a life.