Personal Poem

When I walk around downtown Durango
I sometimes find myself searching for the location
Of shops and restaurants no longer there

With quiet intention, I will walk past familiar places:
Carver’s, Brown’s Shoe, Maria’s Bookshop

When in deep thought, I walk into the Animas
Chocolate Company – and like the numerous times
Before, the rows of truffles within the case

Deeply absorb me – the chocolatier’s artistry of
Small batch truffles, neatly arranged

Multi-colored, diversely shaped, shiny speckled &
smooth surfaced, gold dusted, nut-layered
globes rotate into my thoughts, a lasso spiraling

my focus like a funnel, like a warm caress leading me
by the hand, a lover’s scent lingering in the air

I do not buy a tray of truffles, nor an Americano coffee,
or any discounted chocolate tucked in the bin
by the east wall – rather I deeply absorb into

The something missing from this morning – the lingered
Yearning, the inability to coax last night’s thoughts:

Come forth & sing! Strands of hair beneath my pillow
Lost (or loose among) – inventoried in last month’s
Balance sheet – Did I?

O Asphyxiation – how You applaud My lapses
The lapping of consummating downtown walks

This evening there is a ruckus on Main St.
I lift my head, and see Nancy who just came from
The Pride event at the 11th St. Station

She’s covered with rainbow hearts &
We split one down the middle and pose

Click
Click
Click again

The goofiness, the anointing of laughter, the
Hug in broad daylight on Main St. in this

Mountain desert, tourist-tangled, tousled about
Like miners searching for a Mother-lode-of-
Gold town, the place I call home

Copyright © 2024 by Esther Belin. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 19, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

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