CIRCLE ROUTES

 

The Canada geese this morning

are plodding in weary circles

along the side of the road,

one after the other, waiting for

this gray Autumn rain to lift

to begin their long flight

back to where they started from.

SECONDHAND

 

I suppose that I should have been more grateful

for the everyday lessons in transience,

the irrefutable truth that nothing in this life

is ever ours to begin with, only on loan,

and that the end result of all this accumulation

is, inevitably, dispersal. But when you're a kid,

and coolness matters most, the tell-tale uniform

of the poor weighs upon your shoulders

and limbs, the shushing sound of those shapeless

polyester pants, as if you were being erased,

your movements tentative, your steps slightly out of sync.

Nothing ever seemed to fit quite right,

as my own form seemed ill-suited for its design,

growing up and out, lumbering from room

to quiet room, from one pulse of air to another.

But the dog-eared books, yellowing already,

the worn and scuffed record albums

handed down from an older brother or sister

were always a blessing, tangible portals

to a thousand different realms, lives both mysterious

and mundane, which I could add to my own,

wandering through it all unscathed.

The teachers, with few exceptions, took

little notice, handed me down to the next level

of learning, and the next. My mother, too,

seemed already worn out with it all,

hardly interested in raising any of us, eager

to pass us down to a world hovering between

ambivalence and constant danger.

But we had been studying, albeit humbly,

unnoticed, shifting in and out of view, letting go

again and again. We would be ready.

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.

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.