A SUDDEN DOWNPOUR

 

The sky opens without warning, as it will

this time of year, while a woman races across

the parking lot of a local department store,

weighted bags on either shoulder, her two

young children holding up the hem of her long

summer dress as though it were a tent.

I can hear the lilt of their voices rising

to meet their mother's, hear the wet slapping

of their flip-flops against the pavement;

and I can hear their laughter ringing out

between words, a sound that is easily understood

in any language, welcoming this sudden storm.

This is only rain, after all, not the hot metal

of bombs, no more to be feared than the sound

of their breathing or names spoken aloud.

For now, their mother keeps the sky away.

For now, this is all the shelter they will need.

ROGER

 

They said you were trouble even back then,

hanging from the highest ledge

you could find, cadging smokes from

the older boys, proud to add a new curse word

to your ever-expanding arsenal.

I knew only that you were my friend,

no better or worse than the rest of us project brats,

in and out of the system, wandering our

small world freely, mostly without consequence,

scavengers and explorers not expected

home until the blue-tinged halos of

streetlights flickered up and down the block.

Years later, visiting our foster mother

for what would be the last time,

I asked about you, and where you might be.

"Oh," she sighed, as if blowing out

a puff of imaginary smoke, while gazing

down at the gray-tinged sidewalk, "You don't

want to know about Roger. Believe me."

I knew that she meant jail, knew she meant

one wrong turn leading to another, and another,

until no escape route could be found,

I knew that she meant you never really stood

a chance, a born and raised statistic.

I made my own mistakes, neither unique

nor decisive -- but I am still here

to speak of you, to remember your wildness

as the innocence it was, your laughter

pure as you raced through the ditch grass,

rough stars from the sticker bushes

clinging to your skinny ankles, running simply

for the sake of running, or maybe

just to show the rest of us

where that trampled path might lead.

WITH APOLOGIES TO DR. WILLIAMS

 

So much depends upon

the stuffed mouse,

frayed and

covered in cat spit,

hidden within a blue

running shoe

at the start of day.

EVENING DISPATCH

 

I swatted, quite

absentmindedly, a fly

pausing on a patch

of dusty window glass,

the fat yellowing

sleeve of old newspaper

suddenly a weapon,

the cobalt sheen

and barely discernible

wings of its body leaving

a small apostrophe

of blood not far from

my brother's face

and name printed near

the top of the page, fading,

startling me anew,

as if I had just stumbled

upon this news, as if

I had been unaware --

blissfully so --

for all this time.