New and Selected Poems (23 page)

Minister of our coming doom, preaching
On the car radio, how right
Your hell and damnation sound to me
As I travel these small, bleak roads
Thinking of the mailman's son
The army sent back in a sealed coffin.

 

His house is around the next turn.
A forlorn mutt sits in the yard

Waiting for someone to come home.
I can see the TV is on in the living room,
Canned laughter in the empty house
Like the sound of beer cans tied to a hearse.

These grand old buildings
With their spacious conference rooms,
Leather-padded doors,
Where they weigh life and death
Without a moment of fear
Of ever being held accountable,

 

And then withdraw to dine in style
And drink to each other's health
In private clubs and country estates,
While we linger on the sidewalk
Admiring the rows of windows
The evening sun has struck blind.

There were three of them, always three,
Sunbathing side by side on the beach,
The sound of waves and children's voices so soothing
It was hard to stay awake.

 

When I woke, the sun was setting.
The three friends knelt in a circle
Taking turns to peek into a small mirror
And comb their hair with the same comb.

 

Months later, I happened to see two of them
Running in the rain after school,
Ducking into a doorway with a pack of cigarettes
And a glance at me in my new uniform.

 

In the end, there was just one girl left,
Tall and beautiful,
Making late rounds in a hospital ward,
Past a row of beds, one of which was mine.

When she still knew how to make shadows speak
By sitting with them a long time,
They talked about her handsome father,
His long absence, and how the quiet
Would fill the house on snowy evenings.

 

“Tell us, child, are you afraid?” they'd ask,
While the girl listened for steps in the hallway,
The long, dim one with a full-length mirror
That's been going blind like her grandmother
Who could no longer find or thread a needle

 

As she sat in the parlor remembering some actors
Her son brought to dinner one night,
The one young woman who wandered off by herself
And was found later, after a long search,
Floating naked in the black water of the pond.

In his fear of solitude, he made us.
Fearing eternity, he gave us time.
I hear his white cane thumping
Up and down the hall.

 

I expect neighbors to complain, but no.
The little girl who sobbed
When her daddy crawled into her bed
Is quiet now.

 

It's quarter to two.
On this street of darkened pawnshops,
Welfare hotels and tenements,
One or two ragged puppets are awake.

I'm going over to see what those weeds
By the stone wall are fretting about.
Perhaps they don't care for the way
The shadows creep across the lawn
In the silence of the afternoon.

 

The sky keeps being blue,
Though we hear no birds,
See no butterflies among the flowers,
No ants running over our feet.
As for the trees in our yard,

 

They bend their branches ever so slightly
In deference to something
About to make its entrance
Of which we know nothing,
Spellbound as we are by the deepening quiet.

There was a melon fresh from the garden
So ripe the knife slurped
As it cut it into six slices.
The children were going back to school.
Their mother, passing out paper plates,
Would not live to see the leaves fall.

 

I remember a hornet, too, that flew in
Through the open window
Mad to taste the sweet fruit
While we ducked and screamed,
Covered our heads and faces,
And sat laughing after it was gone.

In the woods one fair Sunday,
When we were children,
We came upon a couple lying on the ground.

 

Hand in hand, ourselves afraid
Of losing our way, we saw
What we first thought was a patch of snow,

 

The two clutching each other naked
On the bare ground, the wind
Swaying the branches over them

 

As we stole by, never to find out
Who they were, never to mention it afterwards
To each other, or to anyone else.

My beloved, you who spend your nights
Torturing me
By holding up one mirror after another
To me in the dark,
If there's anything I know to say or do today,
I merit no praise for it,
But owe it to the subtlety of your torments,
And your perseverance in keeping me awake.

 

All the same, who gave you the right
To judge me in my wretchedness?
What soul white as snow
Compiled this endless list of misdeeds
You read to me every night?
The airs you put on when I tell you to stop
Would make one believe
You were once a bedmate of a Chinese emperor.

 

I like it best when we do not say a word.
When we lie side by side
Like two lovers after their passion is spent.
Once again, day is breaking.

A small bird in the trees is pouring her heart out
At the miracle of the coming light.
It hurts.
The beauty of a night spent sleepless.

It'll be a while before my friends
See me in the city,
A while before we roam the streets
Late at night
Shouting each other's names
To point out some sight too wonderful
Or too terrifying
To give it a name in a hurry.

 

I'm staying put in the country,
Rising early,
Listening to the birds
Greet the light,
And when they fall quiet,
To the wind in the leaves
Which are as numerous here
As the crowds in your city.

 

God never made a day as beautiful as today,
A neighbor was saying.
I sat in the shade after she left
Mulling that one over,
When a toad hopped out of the grass
And, finding me harmless,
Hopped over my foot on his way to the pond.

It likes empty churches
At the blue hour of dawn.

 

The shadows parting
Like curtains in a sideshow,

 

The eyes of the crucified
Staring down from the cross

 

As if seeing his bloody feet
For the very first time.

1

 

It was always here.
Its vast terrors concealed
By this costume party
Of flowers and birds
And children playing in the garden.

 

Only the leaves tell the truth.
They rustle darkly,
Then fall silent as if listening
To a dragonfly
Who may know a lot more of the invisible,

 

Or why else would its wings be
So translucent in the light,

So swift to take flight,
One barely notices
It's been here and gone.

 

2

 

Don't the shadows know something about it?
The way they, too, come and go
As if paying a visit to that other world
Where they do what they do
Before hurrying back to us.

 

Just today I was admiring the one I cast
As I walked alone in the street
And was about to engage it in conversation
On this very topic
When it took leave of me suddenly.

 

Shadow, I said, what message
Will you bring back to me,
And will it be full of dark ambiguities
I can't even begin to imagine
As I make my slow way in the midday sun?

 

3

 

It may be hiding behind a door
In some office building,
Where one day you found yourself
After hours
With no one to ask for directions,
Among the hundreds of doors
All lacking information what sort of business,
What sort of drudgery goes on
Inside its narrow, poorly lit rooms.

 

Some detective agency
That'll find God for a small fee?
Some company ready to insure you,
Should one day,
Despite the promises of your parish priest,
You turn up in hell?

 

The long hallway ends at a window
Where even the light of the dying day
Seems old and dusty.
It understands what waiting is,
And when found out
Appears surprised to see you here.

 

4

 

The moment you shut off the lamp,
Here they are again,
The two dead people
You called your parents.

 

You'd hoped you'd see tonight
The girl you loved once,
And that other one who let you
Slip a hand under her skirt.

 

Instead, here's that key in a saucer of small change
That wouldn't open any lock,
The used condom you found in church,
The lame crow your neighbor kept.

 

Here's the fly you once tortured,
A rock you threw at your best friend,
The pig that let out a scream
As the knife touched its throat.

 

5

 

People here still tell stories
About a blind old man
Who rolled dice on the sidewalk
And paid children
In the neighborhood
To tell him what number came up.

 

When they were away in school,
He'd ask anyone
Whose steps he heard,
The mailman making his rounds,
The undertakers loading a coffin in their black wagon,
And you, too, mister,
Should you happen to come along.

 

6

 

Dark evening, gray old tenement,
A white cat in one window,
An old man eating his dinner in another.
Everyone else hidden from view,

 

Like the one who waits for the tub
To fill up with hot water
While she undresses before a mirror
Already beginning to steam over.

 

Imagination, devil's helper,
Made me glimpse her two breasts
As I hurried by with my face tucked in my collar,
Because the wind was raw.

 

7

 

Dear Miss Russell:

 

Nights, you took me on a private tour
Of the empty town library.
I could hardly keep up
As you darted along the rows of books,
Whispering their names,
Pointing out the ones I ought to read,

 

Then forgetting all about me,
Pulling the light cord
And leaving me in the dark
To grope for a book
Among the shelves,
Surely the wrong one,

 

As I was soon to learn
At the checkout desk
Under your pitying gaze
That followed me into the street
Where I dared not stop
To see what I held in my hand
Until I had rounded the corner.

 

8

 

A rusty key from a cigar box full of keys
In a roadside junk shop.
The one I held on to a long time
Before I let it slip
Through my fingers.

 

Most likely, when it was still in use,
The reclusive author
Of “The Minister's Black Veil”
Was still cooped up
In his mother's house in Salem.

 

It opened a small drawer
With a stack of yellowed letters
In a dresser with a mirror
That gave back a pale face
With a pair of feverish eyes

 

In a room with a view
Of black, leafless trees
And red clouds hurrying at sunset,
Where soon tears fell
Causing the key to go rusty.

 

9

 

O Persephone, is it true what they say,
That everything that is beautiful,
Even for one fleeting moment,
Descends to you, never to return?

 

Dressmaker pinning a red dress in a store window,
Old man walking your sickly old dog,
Even you little children holding hands
As you cross the busy street with your teacher,

 

What hope do you have for us today?
With the sky darkening so early,
The first arriving flakes of snow,
Falling here and there, then everywhere.

 

10

 

Invisible one, watching the snow
Through a dark window
From a row of dark schoolhouse windows,
Making sure the snowflakes fall
In proper order
Where they were fated to fall
In the gray yard,
And hush the moment they do.

 

The crow nodding his head
As he walks by
Must've been a professor of philosophy
In a previous life
Who despite changed circumstances
Still opens his beak
From time to time
As if to address his adoring students,
And seeing nothing but snow,
Looks up puzzled
At one of the dark windows.