Poems by Anne Pierson Wiese

Tell Me
There are many people who spend their nights
on the subway trains. Often one encounters
them on the morning commute, settled in corners,
coats over their heads, ragged possessions heaped
around themselves, trying to remain in their own night.

This man was already up, bracing himself against
the motion of the train as he folded his blanket
the way my mother taught me, and donned his antique blazer,
his elderly, sleep-soft eyes checking for the total effect.

Whoever you are-tell me what unforgiving series
of moments has added up to this one: a man
making himself presentable to the world in front
of the world, as if life has revealed to him the secret
that all our secrets from one another are imaginary.


The Taking
In the morning on my way to the subway
I pass disemboweled trash bags
at the curb, in front of the big building
down the block. You can tell how people dug things out
overnight by street light, or in the drizzle-lit dawn,
carrying some away, but others only a certain
distance — maybe ten steps, maybe fifty yards — before
deciding upon inspection that after all they
were not worth the taking. A child's stained pink sweatshirt hung
neatly on a fence, a rusty saucepan like a hat
on a hydrant, a bundle of old magazines
rippled by the damp on the hood of a parked car —
each item taken carefully and as carefully
dismissed, for reasons known only to those who disappear.


- Anne Pierson Wiese (From Floating City:Poems)