Red Runner
Rent from DeepDyve- Red Runner
She comes at me in red tightsshowing satin skin underneath,and red shorts,a red runner’s jacket,
like a bird I don’t expect to seein the rain.
Thinking of fires I have builtand how flames are notgratuitous,how hard it is to get evencombustible material to burn,
I wonderhowshe burnsthrough the continuous rain
(of Juneau),this runner, young woman,product of the 20th century.
When I passed her,we exchanged a rather frankbrutalglance. [End Page 124]
She sawa middle-aged woman,bundled in a coat,walking fast on her short legs.Probably, to this red runner,I appeared to be some slowsea creature,crawling along the bottomof the ocean.
She ran past me,like firecrackers(which frightened me in my youth)or sequins glittering on a dancer’s costume,a bottle of Tabasco which had put on an Adidas,and, irrelevantly, I think ofa Carmen Miranda movie.
But this rain has come to meanthat things don’t change.When you reach a certain age, even the flame of a red satin–shorted runner,coming like a can-can girlout of the silver twilightwas not so much a change, as a proof of sameness.Red runner,reminder that I liveif notin another time,another world,one where a flame is not easyto coax into life,one where I am outdated,or extinguished,or under water;certainly no location for a flame. [End Page 125]
Diane Wakoski is the author of more than twenty-five books of poetry, her most recent being Bay of Angels (Anhinga Press, 2013). She is, after thirty-seven years, University Distinguished Professor emeritus from Michigan State University.
