After Track Practice
After track practice,
shorter by half
for the meet the next day,
you cut through the woods
for the packie on the corner.
It won’t be a wild night.
A few friends, a few beers,
colleges accepted,
grades don’t mean a thing.
When yesterday’s storm
stopped training mid-sprint,
you dreamt of ribbons
too blue to behold,
and suddenly,
the grass is green again
and tiny buds sprout
from black fingers
clutching at the rain.
It smells of earth
and immortality.
Well, not really,
but you hope
I will be impressed,
at least a little,
with the thought.
You exit the woods,
to find an old car
leering from the curb,
stripped to its
undercoat,
rust snaking
around the doors.
How strange to sleep
in a car on such
an afternoon,
you think, when you see
the head thrown back
on the seat,
a dot at the temple.
You are neither
shocked nor afraid,
you tell me later,
when you lean toward
the open window and
see the matte eyes,
the dark stain
on the upholstery.
The left hand grips
what could be a toy
or a starter’s pistol.
No big deal, you insist,
though I wonder if you know
how much you tremble.
Thumbs Up
Dad’s teaching me how to make a whistle
out of an acorn cap. Like this. He leans
over me from behind, his arms clamping
my shoulders like a backpack, straining my neck
till it burns with the weight of his desire
for me to get it right. He takes my two hands
in his two hands, bends my left thumb over
the little French hat. Loosen up, he says,
shaking my thumb like a thermometer,
then repositioning it on the cap.
That’s right, he says. Then he does the same
to the other thumb, pauses, drops his arms,
steps away, spins me to face him with a
surprising urgency. Do this. He bends
his thumb near my face like he’s watering
the lawn. I do the same, with both thumbs, but—
something I’ve never noticed before—the
right thumb doesn’t bend, it stays as flat as
an ice cream spoon. When did that happen? I
wonder, and how? but all Dad says is
No wonder. Then his face darkens; he puts
out his own fists, thumbs up. Uh-huh, he nods,
both thumbs working an imaginary
joystick like the fighter pilot he always
wanted to be and would have been,
but for eyes that couldn’t see red from green
and feet as flat as the soles of his shoes.
Sunday Observance
The sack around your face
enfolded a younger man’s chin,
as if the younger could reemerge
like a snake.
You talked of dying
as if it were far away,
as if we would always peg
Sunday cribbage
in the shadows between innings,
grandfather and grandson,
forgiving each other
his age and infirmity.
You said it wasn’t good
to get old, that old age
was the curse of consciousness.
Yet you talked of dying
As if it were far away.
When death came,
there wasn’t much
left to claim:
a walking ghost,
too weak to fight.
When death came,
you fought anyway,
lungs filled with fluid,
arteries choked with fat,
brain cells bursting
like packing bubbles,
your tottering Judas
betraying you
for a bit of rest
instead of silver.