Ithaca Poem by R.Benjamin Abate

In Ithaca
The women
Wear leather boots
& Make eyes-

You can't say a thing
But they look at the bong
In the hemp shop then back
At you while licking their lips

Record stores
Have a rare
Selection
For you

Walls painted-
Yellow brick roads-
Strangers smirk
At our perky eyes

While we skip
Hand in hand
& swig
A bottle of Hennessy

& An old woman
Listening to 'Round Midnight
Paints in a lonely room
Lit with candles

Taughannock falls
Crash gloriously
Like the first fountain
Found many moons ago

A cat in an alley wakes
& Nightfall brings a
Cold breeze
Rushing up my shirt

& Now & then,
Ithaca's Gorges spill their
Stone soul
Into the old stream