THE COMMUNICATION

You said the poem was spectacular

then let me know

you would be going home

once more.

Your body’s failing strength

left only its mind's

clarity for you to return with,

which you did, offering

its spaciousness to others.

At the transfer station,

everyone clings to you,
but you no longer cling to anything

while everything about you
points beyond –

to the Mother's final solstice

and her pairing of two cardinals.

I see the female first;

swooping in at my window

under the porch roof,

hovering mid-flight.

Then the exchange:

its mate, melodious,

his red head – the color of ribbon –

poking out

from inside the center

of the Christmas wreath,

not to be removed, not yet.

Spring snows would fall,

and over the mountain

at Mad River Glen

I would drive past skiers

and cars with out-of-state plates,

as if shaving my face

for the first time in a month.

for Kathy Eldergill

1953-2017

INTERROGATION

What’s in the head

with the library?

More than a corpse.

Words meander

over circuits of breath;

a shade moves

up, then down.

Are you naked?

Stepping out from the shower,

a ghost hitches up its scars.

Talk, damn you!

Once upon a time
our eyes closed

in tandem, in silence.

THE SPECIMEN WORLD

A rifle shot comes

from the direction of Main Street,

but the sounding doves outside

the bedroom aren’t startled,

and the noise of traffic

hasn’t stopped.

I should pull the window shade up,

let in the eye-riveting light,

call again for help

from one of the strangers

who moved in.

The darlings keep busy.

They must be struggling

to make sense of the laundry

hung out to dry on the porch.

I will give the sheets names

for when it gets dark,

and give them a piece of my mind, too,

for their flirty bedevilment.

I’ve always known my husband
couldn’t be trusted.

He has hidden their letters from me,

in the magazines and books

left lying about.

I tear off their pages

and make my rounds,

scattering tiny piles of ripped up paper

like bird seed, throughout the house.

POEM OF DEPARTURE

            Let yourself go: mourn in the evening,

            with your curtains pulled open and your lights turned on;

Wail, from dusk to daybreak, straying across your neighbor’s yard.

Go into the hedgerow, safe for a blind bird’s sleep.

Look!  The moon ladles diamonds over clouds,

and still there is time for your wounds to heal.

            Pray for the starved and cold departed.

            Plead for capable hands,

feeling to reverse the sun’s dementia.         

            Let yourself go; trust the gusting wind

            and the window's elbow.

            

THE NAVIGATOR

First, the lost guy says, “At last,

a street I recognize.”

Then he asks, “Are you who I’ve come to see?”

“It’s not that I have to be,” I say,

“We’re doing things differently now.”

Inventing the chair, women used colors

men were afraid of. 

It worked.

Priapus dressed up, before he sat down.

I could see that the kids were busy,

out in the garden, weeding, 

so I said, “Alright, let’s got for a walk.”

We went around the corner.

“To fit me for a suit,” he said,

“We’ll measure this little world.”

“Then we can describe it,” I said,

            “of my own making, but another’s impulse.”

He smiled.

“You’ve rendered it well,” he said,

            “especially my fondness for light;

soon we will part the black flames

            on its horizon.”

THE UNCREATED LIFE

You considered shifting your position.
The windows across the room were open,
but you were holding your words in
for the visitor.
What might have happened
had already happened
and no longer seemed important.
You had moved through plenty of stories
before you surrendered,
when the voices and hands that took over
fit the comfort of light.
Escape routes shape
the created world,
as the outside heralds mercy.

CABOOSEMAN

In a country without good-byes,

the train doesn’t slow down at the station

for a small boy’s eyes

to catch up to its clatter,

but as I hurtle by I see

his hand wave when he spots me.

Standing at the back of the caboose,

I see everything the train passes by;

if I could reach my eyes further

into the distance before me,

I would never lose sight of the past.

On the station platform,

the boy stays angled, looking

into the fresh snow

that falls between us.

From under his cap, he watches me

quickly diminished by the very future

I avoid, not turning around.

To him, I’ve become an apparition;

escaped from the convergence

of time with space,

I float through wet air’s warp,

hands parting frontward

and head turned downwards, flutter-kicking

across the thick, white vertical lines

that drive past me, obliterating

horizontals.

Each instant a snowflake touches

ground below me, I see a soul

escape up, joining in

an invisible traffic

equal in mass and density

to the downfall.

These souls climb the falling snow,

grasping each flake.

Not one goes untouched.

As soul after soul moves upwards,                                   

their triangular yellow outlines bleed

into brightness.

In some, I can still faintly see

the blue circles and red squares

their shimmering contains,

like memories.

Mine have weighed me down.

I feel them tug me back onto the train,

and I am sped away.

                    - for Kit Donnelly