THE LAST K-MART

 

The last K-Mart department store in the country

is closing today, and I am reminded suddenly

of those long-ago Saturday afternoons, following

my brother along the forbidden shortcut

through the tall grass and weeds which ran

alongside the junkyard, fresh quarters in hand

for finishing our weekend chores, to be quickly spent

on some small novelty, or if we had pooled

our money, a new hamster to replace the one we

had just buried, our first undeniable shock

at the fleetingness of this world and all it holds.

I am reminded, too, of my brother's name

for the store: Came-Apart, which never failed

to make us laugh, remember back-to-school shopping

with our tired mother, the generic Trax sneakers

and stiff, creased denim of Husky jeans, which

became the tell-tale wardrobe of welfare kids and

project brats -- which is to say, many of us.

I remember blue light specials in the cafeteria,

and our family TV and sofa on layaway.

I wonder what will become of the gumball stands,

the rusted merry-go-round and plastic pony

outside the entrance that you could sit atop for a nickel,

dreaming of faraway prairies and open sky.

No doubt they will be hauled away for the indignity

of the landfill, or to some industrial warehouse,

while my brother sleeps the same silent sleep

that he has mastered for more than twenty years,

not far from here, not far from anywhere.

When last I checked, that shortcut was still there.

GUPPIES

 

Nothing grew in that drab one-bedroom

apartment, gray-blue light cast from the swerving

freeway below, the old service road following

beside it like a shadow, then turning

with a half-hearted shrug, a sad aquarium

of ordinary days circling, reflecting,

measuring themselves against us.

You moved the plants from one window

to another, hung them in the kitchen,

then the bathroom, fed them on eggshells

and coffee grounds -- all to no avail,

their brown and brittle ghosts too weary

to drift away, littering the floor and windowsills.

When we came back from that day trip

to the lake, the guppies you had just bought

were floating on the surface of the water,

their small incandescent bodies motionless,

tailfins like flames sputtered out, yet still glowing;

we knew, separately, without having to say,

that something larger had ended.

You left, at a ridiculous hour of the night,

a time normally reserved for old blues songs,

and weeks later, I did too, filling every bag

and suitcase with all the emptiness I could claim.

Even now, I wonder why we chose that place,

whether in hope or desperation; even now,

I wonder in what other rooms,

what other lives, we might have survived.

MAN AND CROW

 

No one remembers now how or when, but the crow took to Grandpa Nels, and he took to the crow, until it began to follow him far into the field, the two of them talking about whatever it is that a man and a crow discuss -- the likelihood of rain, the ordinary things that matter most, or what it means to be alone on this earth. When he carried water from the well to the barn, again and again, the crow tagged along. When he fed the fox that slept in the shed, never bothering the turkeys in their pens, the crow kept watch. Grandma said the bird was so smart it could count and answer your questions, and always knew when you were talking about it. They took to speaking Finnish, the way they did to keep the kids from listening when they argued. They forgave it for stealing coins and buttons, a thimble, and even Grandpa's teeth, which were eventually returned. When it vanished, no one knew just why. It simply had crow work to do, perhaps a family of its own to watch over. But it left its absence in all the places it had been. Grandpa's shadow grew thin, his body frail, and whatever had been spoken between them remained so, white clouds sweeping clear the summer blue sky.

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.

SITTING WITH THE SICK CAT

 

We are up early, neither of us having rested

much during the night -- up and down

like sleepwalkers -- the neighbors yet to stir,

the first sunrise of autumn yet to break through

the chill-dark distance of the window.

The weather channel on the television plays

softly some French music from another century,

while I glance occasionally at the shifting patterns

of colors and light on the screen, the familiar

outlines of our state, country, then world,

then only the endless turn of borderless sky.

My daughter sleeps, safe and sound,

in the next room, growing taller and stronger

by the hour. But this small creature, having become

the center of her young life, struggles

to find the simplest comfort, circling my lap,

purring, wheezing, nodding off, letting

out a throaty exclamation that is part pain,

part surprise at the very insistence of it.

For the moment, this is our entire universe,

the hum and hush of it, the secrets

and complexities of its motion, the hot

pinpricks of starlight that pierce through flesh,

our common desire to understand.

There is not much I can do beyond this,

a feeling that as a father I am long familiar with,

but stubbornly refuse to get used to.

Our weariness is our common song this morning,

our breathing a shared language welcoming --

or at least acknowledging -- whatever

this uncertain day may bring.

SENSITIVE

 

I have never wanted for you, dearest daughter,

to be anything other than the beautiful and sensitive

soul you have always been, collecting oak seeds

to watch them spin back down to earth,

those long-stemmed dandelions bent over, as if in prayer,

deciphering the forms of strange new animals

among the clouds, where the ancestors sleep,

faces smiling back from the most ordinary of stone.

I have admired, as an outsider, the special language

you share with birds and trees, how the cats

in the neighborhood all come to you, unafraid,

knowing you already, and how you mourned deeply

the death of your beta fish, the one you called

your sister and confided your worries to.

I have heard you choosing each word for a poem

or song, tapping them against the roof

of your mouth, letting the new sounds settle,

until they filled your ears as perfectly as the silence,

watched you conduct, with arms gently waving,

a string concerto constructed in your mind;

and when bullies have thrown their sharpened words

like so many stones, I have sat within your sorrow,

unable to offer an answer as to why some, young

or old, simply enjoy the act of causing harm.

These are the times when I want nothing more than to

protect you from the inclement elements of self,

the ever-shifting atmosphere of your inner world

overwhelming you, to close, temporarily, the windows

against the sudden rain of summer, until the sun

again finds its way, small enough to tuck into

your pocket like a coin, thin and hot to the touch,

rubbed smooth at the center, reflecting.

DISAPPOINTMENT AFTER A BRIEF WINTER STORM

 

We had anticipated far worse, as the prophets of winter skies had been promising -- or threatening -- for days, the word "crippling" suddenly commonplace in their weather-speak. We had expected to be stranded, shut in, with nowhere to go but further into a stack of new books, the warm engines of cats humming softly on our laps. But today we wake to crisp blue skies, walls of snow stacked neatly on either side of the street, cars already easing their way through with little resistance. Our responsibilities have found us again, our collective relief mingled with a strange sense of disappointment, not unlike what my mother must have felt when her Messiah failed to return yet again. We had longed to hunker down amongst the fresh winter silence, to claim the lengthening hours as our own, to bend our backs to help our neighbors before retreating to our newfound lives -- solitary, unhurried, underground.