Rain pours straight down, warm
in the meadow, the cabin’s tin roof rings,
boys run for a lone pin oak.
They sneer at lightning,
turn face and naked chest
to the deluge.
Frogs roll out of the forest,
a sleepy plague. The boys pluck them
from the meadow—
grass sticks up between their toes
as if they had grown there.
Travel always leads
to this darkened window
streamed with rain.
a panther pads out of the blinds,
spins on the ceiling fan;
the dog growls, makes three turns,
bites his tail
prayers, unfinished, drift
upward into the room
Old dogs bathed in mercury blue light
before dark farmhouses
bark at the noise of the airplane:
A bubble filled with strangers
who look out on pale-veined spiders
weaving web over the night
and are silent,
like when the dogs lay down to sleep,
and there is only wind.
The girl sulks; silence grown loud.
He shakes out the newspaper,
hides behind it, in the dark room
inside his heart.
feathers of fog drift down the hill
chest heavy, reverberating
quiet grows wet, breath laden
neat, blond wedges in knuckled-branch anarchy
the handle’s warm,
blade clean and cold, nicks across the edge
sparks spiral into night
Leg strings on crooked feet
stretched one big brown shoe forward,
then the other; arms jerked like panic
as he marched into the Schuylkill.
Smoke rose from him in ribbons.
His raised hand trembled,
stars and stripes forever and ever and ever.
Glockenspiel players twinkled like stars,
threw in their lot with trombonists
hooked to a moon crescent—
keys jangling on a warden’s ring.
rivers of traffic bustle under the bridge
in whirls of vertigo
high up, masked men work st. elmo’s fire,
curtains of sparks whip into
windy rooms between skyscrapers
women float through lobbies,
men pat bellies through revolving doors,
valets flick wrists, make cabs appear
back at the bridge, we watch men
at the wheels of trucks,
and listen to news from abroad
The Seer fiddles in his pockets:
mouse whiskers and rattlesnake traps,
badger teeth and bison horns,
Indian beads polished for trade.
He fishes out the square nail,
rusty and long,
that once held together Old Jones’ barn.
It buzzsaws in his palm,
rests only in winter dark
when sound freezes until spring
and moonlight turns snow silver,
And then, the nail points to a fold
in the canvas weave
heavy with the smell of coal smoke,
corn silk, milkweed tuft.
Moon money, legal tender
anywhere in the universe,
buys you quite a piece there.
He said he looked down
at the phalanx of suits,
a line of polished shoes,
the battalion of ties on the door
and couldn’t remember
when he wasn’t 51 years old.