Citizenship
By John Repp
That time in the Sunset District when we did laundry—
now that was a time! I adore urban hikes—
Squirrel Hill on frigid Saturdays, especially the downhill Shady stretch—
the Broadway haul from 100th to 57th while gobbling
a Fairway Gravenstein, Lincoln Center looming & receding—
Davis Square on a cloudless January morning after hotcakes—
The Royal Mile, sun sitting on the horizon all day, a single, purple-black
cloud overhead, Edinburgh Castle incandescent emerald—
but the salty wind into which we leaned with our duffle, the Japanese Garden
four blocks that way, a block of tiny garages this?
Life doesn’t get any better! For five minutes,
we had the place to ourselves, time enough to dump the wee boxes
of powder into the machines & get things going
till an Asian (where in that vastness his forebears may have thriven
I with my to-this-day-S & H-Green-Stamps-encyclopedia-dominated
“knowledge” can’t say) man burst in smiling, bowing, grabbing
for Dylan’s hand, pushing papers & a floppy book at him, then more bowing
& still more, help from me no good! Kathy? not a glance
him! him! the man beamed at our eight-year-old,
three dull pencils clattered on the table here! him! all four of us smiling
& bowing till Kathy & Dylan left to find
muffins in the cold but sunny San Francisco wind
while the now-somber, now-grinning man & I hunkered down
to absurd questions of citizenship. A cartoon American,
I spoke louder at every baffled smile, frowned grunt, scratch on neck
& riffle of pages & I understood! I empathized! I was a human
meadow fragrant with the lavender of compassion because when
it wasn’t dumping bullshit by the truckload, the book was plain wrong,
the few pages I read, anyway. I shrugged & frowned & smiled & nodded
sympathetically till at last he rose, grabbed his things & crossed the street
to the Chinese Cultural Center, home, the sign said, of the city’s best massages—
herbal medicine & fireworks piled behind one window, lists of lectures
& free lessons about illegible somethings taped on the other. Me? I had breezy
solitude to enjoy till a woman (where were my beloveds
with muffins & coffee & maybe a surprise apple?)
hobbled in with a rucksack of clothes she meticulously
distributed among three washers, standing on tiptoe to ratchet
the coins home, ignoring my smile & wave. A sunbeam blared in,
illuminating the row of rough-trade paperbacks I hoped my son
hadn’t noticed, especially Rod & Tackle, whose cover models pressed
haunch-to-haunch against a neon-blue background. After shucking
her pea coat & clogs, the woman looked
like a Bombs-Away-LeMay-wet-dream Viet Cong
minus the non la. A nail-clipper having materialized
in her hand, she made short work of her fingernails,
then slid a chair near the door & pulled each foot up in turn,
toenail clippings & jam
dropping to the linoleum, traffic outside unrelenting,
trolleys clacking past, sun vanished, the magazine I’d flipped through
shining on my lap, no wife, no son,
no mug of equatorial coffee resolving the tale
of the woman swinging her crossed ankles under a plastic chair.
Bio: John Repp is a writer, collagist, and folk photographer living in Erie, Pennsylvania (US). In late 2025, Sheila-Na-Gig Editions published his sixth book of poetry, Never Far from the Egg Harbor Ice House. Much more information about Repp’s work and influences/obsessions can be found “on” his website, www.johnreppwriter.com.
Author’s Note: Inspiration? I tend not to think in those terms, but as with a significant portion of the poems I’ve made these many eons, the work of the New York School poets—especially Frank O’Hara—constitutes the air the poem breathes.
