Two Pieces by Andrew Spano

The Last Man

Climbing over piles of brick
that were once apartments,
I used to hold my little radio
up to the sky
hoping for the sound of sunspots
or the voice of an extraterrestrial being.

One of signs of dehydration,
they say, is that you aren’t thirsty.
Not having been held or kissed
for two months, I no longer
crave some evidence
that anything is real
or that there is anyone left out there.

I saw a movie like this.
In it The Last Man
searches for a woman
to restart the human race,
but instead finds a giant spider
holed up in a supermarket
where the world’s only can of sardines
rusts on the shelf.


St. Elvis

I could comfort myself with Elvis,
nestle with a picture book in the big chair
while his honeyed voice croons through
the speakers, and the rain taps its cold
fingers on the dirty window panes.

The sound of cars splashing by on the corner
reminds me that there are others out there.
Some of them comfort themselves with Elvis.
some of them go to church or meditate.

I cast around, desperate for some thing
to hold, some stuffed bear or even
the reassuring hiss of a steam radiator
as I open a book of Palladio’s villas
and drag my fingers over the clay-coated pages
like it was the skin of a lover.

St Elvis, sing for us. Shake a few
measures out all over the stage of the world
as we fumble through a shoebox of photos
late at night, head pounding, cut
from the rest of the herd and breathing hard.

{Poetry by Andrew Spano}