Twin Cities
Minneapolis/St. Paul

In Maginot
Michael Gause

     for the Cities


Maginot waves break east to west
But all is north to those this high


          I.

          While memories of farmland
          Keep us to soil
          The drama of hands
          Winds the stopwatch Uptown


Something must know me so I know home


          II.

          Išve seen us read ourselves aloud
          While elders hunker in quiet houses
          I blame Loring secrets and hungry youth
          I blame us all for the fall of Hennepin


And never has a twin so
Feared the conclusions
Ask Hidden Falls why it holds back its years


          III.

          At the edge of the water
          A loon calls morning

          Franklin Avenue
          Makes a brunette gasp again

          Both sounds are bridges
          And do not distinguish



(Michael Gause's work has appeared in The Venerable Seed, ArtWord Quarterly,
Rape of Narcissus, Poetry Motel, Unarmed,
and Red River Review (Nov '01) and
online at minneapolisunderground.com and mentalcontagion.com. Co-founder
of "The Day on Fire," a televised reading series, he is creator and host of "The
Bean Counter Coffee Reading Series" in St. Paul, Minnesota.)