sunday two

waiting for leonard cohen


sunday night and you’re waiting
for leonard cohen to call –
like all those nights
you were fourteen or twenty-one
or thirty and you fell
asleep between blank pages
of an open notebook

leonard cohen didn’t knock
on the screen door
of your parents’ house –
his car broken down
on the suburban cul-de-sac,
or seeking shelter
for an urgent poem

he didn’t find your address
on a wayward scrap and follow
your scent from montreal or l.a.
to the stacks of a university library
to rest his palm on your forehead

but now you’re waiting
for leonard cohen
to read your name
in an obscure literary journal
and sweet-talk the local operator
into giving up your phone number



Maybe I'm feeling guilty for not posting yesterday, so here's two today. This L.C. piece is one of a series I started working on last May Day. I wrote the first stanza of this ages ago, but just rounded out the rest today.