Halfway House
A red-haired man sits on his suitcase
ready to go anywhere. Having carried
what he could into the snowy night,
he watches from the sidewalk as fire trucks arrive.
A second, older man shelters a potted lily
in his unzipped coat. The blossoms
will be crushed if he covers them completely
so a few ghostly trumpets blare
silently into the storm.
Headphoned and running in place,
a jogger listens to his own soundtrack
for the burning building
only there aren't any flames–
firefighters glide angrily through unharmed rooms.
I feel guilty and exhilarated, part of a crowd
watching a house that's not on fire.
A woman from the doughnut shop
brings cups of coffee in a cardboard box,
strangers share cigarettes. The jogger's almost
dancing to his music while yellow-suited firefighters
enter and leave the house like goldfish.
Who set this invisible fire? Every light
in the group home blazes into the dark.
When the alarm's turned off the silence pulses.
Snow comes down harder. I almost speak
to the man whose huge hand brushes off the petals
of his doomed lily. How has it happened
I'm one block from home and don't know a soul?
Spiritual Direction
Because she poked fun at the way his white robes
flew out behind him as he biked back
to the monastery for vespers
and then, recording her jokes in his journal,
he tried to recall each thing she'd said or done.
Because his hands shook when he phoned her
and later, when they walked beyond the gatehouse,
how the hills wouldn't stop trembling–
he told himself he knew at least this much,
if the world shakes, pay attention!
Because of the long night, then, when he couldn't not
think of her. Or the energy surging
through his ordered life, a wind
rising within him, the same energy he'd followed
long ago into the abbey, almost helpless again before it.
His reaching out of bed for his journal,
trying to describe the sound of her laughter
in the gatehouse corridor. As if God was leading him
away from the church, away even from God.
As if he was at last at the mercy.
The Chaperone
Forgive me, just a day ago
you warned me to write
less about fire, but this morning
I chaperoned a trip to the art museum
and the bus filled with smoke.
In breezy rain I lifted
the children out the rear exit,
led them down the Interstate's
narrow shoulder. Rescued
six at a time, we arrived
in small, wet groups
at the museum, and saw nothing
that rivaled the blaze
from that yellow bus
or the pillared smoke against
overcast skies.
I think we were happiest
standing in spring rain,
watching flames
fanned by sudden gusts.
Game Near Ocotal
(for Paul Graseck, Nicaragua, 1984)
Too dark to dig bomb shelters: they lay their shovels down
and walk to the ball field. Young boys guard the foul lines,
staring up at black hills as they swing their M-16s like bats.
A man with one arm pitches out of the darkness to his son
who swings hard and misses and they all laugh: it's only a game
played out on the border where everything disappears
sooner or later, but when a batter makes contact he roars down
imaginary baselines, taking the shortstop out with a high slide
or tearing blindly for home, head down and furious.
