I Could Be Somebody Who Somebody Could Call On
I know what it means to feel sorry
I’ve been sorry
said it
seen my sorry declined
I’ve regretted
my wording
my relative position
& how I’ve spent my time
I’m estranged from getting
though surely deserving of what I will eventually get
have gotten
I’ve gotten under someone’s skin
been lost inside somebody
I shouldn’t have been
I’ve found love & lost it
nobody should give me credit I don’t deserve
here’s the scene: you’re in the deep green
anamnesis of your youth
the vines wrap around the window awnings
of old downtown buildings
fashioned from mossy character stones
in the forest beside the cul-de-sac
where you know the names of all the dogs who bark
& boys twine your hair through the slits in their fists
& you think about them every time you hear a train in the distance
because the carnal chug of the railway behind their knees
as you kneel
is the most romantic thing
that has ever happened in your whole life
& spring is the perfect season
& maybe if you’re lucky they will call you
& years later they call you when their wives are sleeping
& your heart stands still
& you can be sorry without being sorry
because the greatest feeling you’ve ever felt is both a thanks
& an apology & it’s there for only you
you are the curve that makes the line a circle
& you’re just laying on your couch
with your music playing in the other room
all your roommates are sleeping
& the moon is loud through your curtains & the ocean
doesn’t know you are here with the phone
the hand-me-down lamp on the night stand
& the chipped paint on the wall & this is forever
this is not very long at all
but it is everything
& everything is that small
I haven’t come to lie
I’ve found love & lost it
it soaks me up
I could be the person someone’s heard is back in town
I could
be the person they keep losing & finding again
I been around
I never stop leaving or arriving
I am often trainlike
I could be somebody’s body
if they’d let me sometime maybe
I may be
just the person they’ve been reaching for
at 3 am when the chat group’s dead
& all the world’s hiding in the back of their heads
I don’t know who these voices are attached to
maybe they don’t mean anything
they could mean something
I could be somebody
who somebody could call on
if it’s late & they’re foregone
it could be the most romantic thing that has ever happened
Author’s Bio
Julie Mannell was the guest lecturer at the University of Nebraska’s MFA program and a Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence. In 2018 she was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Her MFA was completed in Toronto where she was the HarperCollins scholarship recipient. In the past, In/Words Magazine named her as one of the Top 30 Poets Under 30 and her work was awarded the Lionel Shapiro Award for Excellency in Creative Writing and the Mona Adilman Poetry Prize.
