Ken Meisel

The City is a Woman 
  
Said the man on Forest Avenue.
He was holding his brown bag
Of fortune & his eyes were salt.
Do you know she loves the body
Of a man even though he's beat
Her? All this as the gulls rose up
Over the black chimney towers
And the trucks stomped & rolled
Into the Eastern Market district.
To love a woman, I think, is to
Try out for size what it is to be
A swollen watermelon. The heart
Is full of redness and dark seeds.
There are stories & dark truths.
Murder and mayhem and a laughter
That is really a strange card game.
We take our chances when we
Love someone until the end of it.
The heart of a city, this one, is full
Of coughing & dead radiators,
And men whose time is a lottery.
The women in it grow dark & mute
And hum songs to hanging laundry
That is never fully cleaned off.
The children in it are leaving it.
We must remember that the city
Is a woman, he said.



Also from Ken Meisel:
Grand River Avenue, Detroit Riots, 1967
The Wind Blowing Down Gratiot Avenue

Contributor Bio

Ken Meisel is a poet & psychotherapist from the Detroit area with publication credits that include Spillway, Cream City Review, Concho River Review, Free Lunch, Sulphur River Literary Review, Rattle, River Oak Review, Byrant Literary Review, Soundings East, and Lake Effect. Rattle magazine chose one of his poems for their 'best of' collection, published in 2006. River Oak Review poetry editor Lance Wilcox wrote a comprehensive review of Ken Meisel's first three books of poetry. It was published in their summer 2007 issue. Ken Meisel is the author of three poetry collections. They are Sometimes the Wind (March Street Press, 2002), Before Exiting (Pure Heart Press, 2006) and Just Listening (Pure Heart Press, 2007). The chapbook version of Just Listening won the 2005 Swan Duckling chapbook contest.  Bottom Dog Press accepted his manuscript, Beautiful Rust for a fall 2009 publication.