The Kitchen Table

.

The mother pushes a rolling pin
over a mound of dough
in that tiny kitchen
warmer than the rest of the house.

Pale winter light
sifts through the window
while her boy draws with his finger
in the flour dusted on the table
a city with its walls,
the paths of nomads
wandering endless plains.

.

Court Street

.

this little girl
pulls her

rusted
rumbling wagon

down the rubbled
sidewalk

carting a torn
fabric doll

an eye missing
the other

loose
and glossy

a penny
blinks

in the dusty
gutter puddle

.

The Window

.

draws in
the cool
evening air

crickets
trees shadowed
on the quieting sky

distant church
bell chimes
above the rooftops

a boy walks from
the yellow glow
of a street lamp

flicking
his nickel
in the air

with his thumb
and loses it
in the stars

.

A Childhood in China

.

She asks where she comes from.
Her mother tells her
they picked her out of the garbage,
for pity’s sake. A village so remote
they never saw a train, never mind a car.
The rice rations ran out,
so they ate pumpkins for a month.
A classmate, seeing a pink eraser
for the first time, ate it, thinking it was candy.
The only one with a sweater,
of the few with shoes, she was allowed to eat
a whole egg, by herself, for her birthday.
Father stalking a stray dog, then smashing it
with a brick, right between the eyes.
Cooking it on a makeshift grill in the woods,
away from the village communal cafeteria,
so they could eat the most of it,
sucking every bit of meat and marrow,
making a broth of the bones. And after a movie
in an open field one summer night,
walking home alone by starlight,
the Milky Way spread its arms around her.

.

And There Was Crying

.


Tonight, down the block,
a mother was screaming
at her children, slapping them.
Tonight there were so many fireflies in the trees
it looked like Christmas.
You could see stars,
hazy through the humid air.
Like trying to see
with tears in your eyes.

.

The Sound of Water in Sewers

.


He sits in a sweat-stained undershirt
in the living room, after another day
punching holes into steel.
A beer, blue TV light
splattering on the walls.
The only other light
falls from the kitchen
onto the back of his wife,
her hair pressed by pins to her scalp,
as she carries two plates
and sets them on the tray between them.
They eat slowly, faces
going slack, looking at nothing
in particular.

.

Looking at Photographs

(Paul Strand)

Coal smoke smudges the sky,
makes everything dingy.

Shadows fill your cup each morning,
for you to drink.

*

Driftwood
tangled like bodies
in a mass grave.

*

Man facing the tide.
Waves in successive rows,
closing in.

*

Ruin as after a violent storm,
as if the heavy, metallic clouds
stamped down hard
and demolished the plain.

A woman bends to see
if a corpse is hers.
Another pleads with her dead son:
Why did you fight?

*


Rebecca, scarred and hardened.
The men in the room eyeing her…

*

Then the sun makes everything
brilliant. The birds are golden.

*

She shines, flickers
in the clouds at night,
the wind blowing her
away from you.

.

The Nurse

.

The nurse who
a short while ago
held a dying man
walks toward the store
on the icy sidewalks
near the school
children
sled the playground hill
shouts
and laughter fade
down the slope.
Silhouetted above the trees
and pale rooftops
a schooner weathervane
rides the clouds of sunset.



--homage to Follain

.

Roadside Calvary

.

The dark curved skid
leads to a gashed tree,
its wept sap hardened,
around which are placed
shriveled bouquets, notes,
and a wood cross painted white
and pounded into the ground
with a tacked-on graduation photo:
young man smiling.
Parents made this shrine,
and of his room a museum.
Desk with dictionary and pencil holder.
Honor roll certificates,
sports posters on the wall.
The bed kept neat,
though the sheets still smell of him.
One may enter,
carefully dust the keepsakes,
lie on the bed
and play their mind's home movies:
His first birthday.
That Christmas they gave him a telescope.
The baseball game
when he slid home—
safe.

.

The Suicide

“to her I send the coffin of lightest wood”
--Paul Celan


Out walking the frozen meadow
I found your hair ribbon, lost
summers ago.

You were already
a memory,
even when I held you
in my arms.

I tied the ribbon to a branch
for you to find

in the silent nights
where you wander.

.

Pietà

(J.M., 1966-91)


You still had the look of pain
on your face. And watching
the tenderness of her
who caressed your death,
fingers smoothing your damp hair,
your lips and softest curving…
I turned away. I could no longer look.

It was night. From the high hospital window
I watched the traffic flowing
through a great interchange.
White lights growing brighter, red lights
disappearing into dark.
Merging, parting
to distant destinations.

.

My Heart

.

I’ve discovered a hole in it.
What caused it, or how long it’s been there,
or what, if anything, has leaked out,
I can’t say. I shake my heart
as I would a Christmas present,
but I don’t feel anything inside,
can’t figure out how to open it.
It has the same fist shape
as a conch, the same airy sound
when I hold the hole to my ear.
What else to do but set it on the mantle,
next to the clock and pair of lit candles:
an object among objects I pass by.

.

Advice for the New Prisoner

.

A cigarette is heaven. If a man wants your ass,
Give it to him. He’ll let you live.

Moaning makes them beat you harder.
Don’t dare to stare at flowers or stars.

If you need to be asleep, imagine you are:
The beds are of cement, quilts of barbed wire.

Keep your feet dry. That vomit is food.
Sing and you’ll be shot.

We don’t know where we are, we have no plan.
Thinking and dreaming and loving shorten your life span.

The guards are everywhere. I could be one too.
Do you trust me? Can I trust you?

The walls are very high.
No one can go over alone.

.

During the Blackout

.

I went out to the orchard,
illicitly, to smoke a cigar
and look up at the sky.
The fleecy clouds were gilded
with the last light
of the vanished sun.
I thought about my life,
my wishes for happiness.

When it was dark I could see
searchlights
roaming the clouds—
four patches of light
cast out
in slow, separate arcs,
each circling each
silently.

Cast out…
like phantoms prowling
for a place, a face,
something they have lost.
Though I couldn’t see it,
I heard a plane flying,
smuggling itself
over the mountains.

.

The Tops of the Clouds Must Be Dazzling Tonight

.

The vines wither
on the rotted lattice.

One by one
the windows of the city
go dark.

*

That squeaking
is the porch swing
in the wind.

That barking
is the neighbor’s dog
wanting to be let in.

*

When a car passes
on the road,

interlacing shadows
slide along the wall

and ripple over my hand
resting on the sill.

.

After Storms

.

The sky is rinsed.
Hills once obscure
now seem close.

Across fathoms you’ve come
bearing an ache
as old as childhood.

Ears fill with wind
and silence.
The shore is warm.

.

Winter Night

.

After frost
feathers the windowpanes
of the small town,
a young father wakes
with blood
hissing in his ears.
He gropes his way
to where his infant daughter
lies sleeping.
Her grip firm on his finger,
the house creaking
in gusts of wind.

.

Candle

.

Light diffuses
through the room
like a diver’s lamp
in the ocean.

Light for storm nights
and chroniclers.
The light on the face
of the one you love.

The night above turns
with the slowness of the wick
unbraiding
in the flame.

.

I finally met...

.

I finally met my grandmother last night,
the one who died before I was born.
She wore a blue flower-print dress
and black stockings, a red kerchief
held her silver hair.
She showed me her seashell collection.
I told her about my brothers
and that my sister was getting married.
She smiled and asked is she beautiful?
Yes; blue eyes, like yours.
And her man has a good job?
Yes, he gazes at her tirelessly.
And you! You’re so tall!
She came over and hugged me,
her little body soft, cool.
She gave me the nautilus I had been looking at
and lay down for her nap.

.

Waiting

.

Through darkening
woods then
the sky clears,
smell of wood smoke.

Wait for the first star
of evening,
for the friend,
neither violent nor weak.

The friend. Wait
for her to close her eyes
so we both may breathe
the violet air of this hour.

.

A Simple Thing

.

I wake to wander
moonlit rooms.

The day haunts me
this night.

Outside, a great wing of cloud
spreads across the sky.

Image of flight…
but from what?

Shadows tangle
on the floor,

but my dear one’s face is clear,
she is curled in sleep.

I sit and think of all the times
I will have to love her.

In the Museum

.

Among still lives of fruit, broken
bread, glass doves and gold goblets,
hung a painting of a decrepit man.
He grasped at his cloak
to pull it more tightly around himself
against the opaque background.
His red-lidded eyes gazed out,
his warped mouth gaped.
There was no caption to tell
who did it, what it’s about.

A woman entered the room
pushing a stroller full of wailing.
She sat at the bench
in the center of the room,
tucked the infant under her shirt
and breast-fed discreetly.
She spoke sweetly to it; she smiled
and closed her eyes.
I looked at the painting,
his look of listening.

.

Intimations

.

A dead-end street.
Ragged yellow afternoon light,
the rain just ended.
Power lines gleam the hidden length.
The windows of the frame houses
flash shards of sky.

A boy walks down the sidewalk.
Even from this distance
I can hear his steps.
Every so often
he kicks a stone,
looks at his face in a puddle.

A dead-end street
spanning before him.

.