5.9 Here’s to Denver!

by Eric Chaet

In a marveling mild jacket-dangling
December in Denver
I leapt off the bus & took off
down sparkling streets
surrounded by a circle of smiling
old white-maned mountains.

Bouncing my feet past U.S. mint & adjoining jail
& past rearing stone fleet Indian pony
ever complete with long extinct brave
who, never fearing, challenges red & green
Christmas displays slapped against the capitol—
I crashed, unknowing, a dignified session
& stood spotlighted in stares
of judges, witnesses, & spectators
realizing only now what that golden dome
flashing in the sun signified—
& rushed back to the bus station
still brothers with the city fathers.

I was so happy, then,
on my way to see a woman at my destination
& guzzling the thin air
that my joy might trigger punishing animosity
didn’t even occur to me til the middle of Kansas.

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Picture: Jonathan Stegeman