Flying At Night Read online

  snow blows

  from the shoulders

  of old houses,

  lifts,

  catches the wind

  like long white hair,

  like pipe smoke,

  like the thin gray scarves

  of immigrants

  standing in line,

  hands in their pockets,

  cold fingers

  pinching the lint

  of their stories.

  The Voyager II Satellite

  The tin man is cold;

  the glitter of distant worlds

  is like snow on his coat.

  Free-falling through space,

  he spreads his arms

  and slowly turns,

  hands reaching to catch

  the white, elusive

  dandelion fuzz

  of starlight. He is the dove

  with wings of purest gold

  sent out upon the deep

  to seek a place for us,

  the goat upon whose back

  we've sent our problems

  into exile, the dreamy beast

  of peace and science

  who now grows smaller, smaller,

  falling so gracefully

  into the great blank face

  of God.

  The Witness

  The divorce judge has asked for a witness,

  and you wait at the back of the courtroom

  as still as a flag on its stand, your best dress

  falling in smooth, even folds that begin now

  to gather the dust of white bouquets

  which like a veil of lace is lifting

  away from the kiss of the sunlit windows.

  In your lap, where you left them, your hands

  lie fallen apart like the rinds of a fruit.

  Whatever they cupped has been eaten away.

  Beyond you, across a lake of light

  where years have sunk and settled to the floor,

  the voices drone on with the hollow sound

  of boats rubbing a dock that they're tied to.

  You know what to say when they call you.

  As the President Spoke

  As the President spoke, he raised a finger

  to emphasize something he said. I've forgotten

  just what he was saying, but as he spoke

  he glanced at that finger as if it were

  somebody else's, and his face went slack and gray,

  and he folded his finger back into his hand

  and put it down under the podium

  along with whatever it meant, with whatever he'd seen

  as it spun out and away from that bony axis.

  The Pitch

  Tight on the fat man's wrist

  is a watch with a misty face.

  His hand is hot on your sleeve.

  He wants you to give him a minute,

  friend, of your precious time.

  He's got something for you

  and the little lady. Call it

  security, call it insurance,

  call it aluminum siding.

  Subscribe to these six magazines

  and the fat man wins a nice trip

  to Hawaii, friend, a nice trip

  to Acapulco. A fat man

  hasn't much time in this world.

  His pulse has one foot in a cast.

  On his cheeks, red cobwebs appear.

  He's got the Moose Lodge on his breath

  like a vinegar bath, and his eyes

  are yellow caution lights. Listen,

  he's got a little woman, too.

  The Sigh

  You lie in your bed and sigh,

  and the springs deep in the mattress

  sing out with the same low note,

  mocking your sadness. It's hard—

  not the mattress, but life.

  Life is hard. All along

  you thought you could trust in

  your own bed, your own sorrow.

  You thought you were sleeping alone.

  The Onion Woman

  All of the clothes she owns

  she wears in layers, coat

  upon coat upon coat

  like an onion. She's wrapped

  the woman inside, the taste

  of the woman, her odors,

  her heart. But the fear

  still shows through all those skins—

  that tight white core

  where the shoot has withered.

  Hobo Jungle

  A fat brown car seat, mushy with rain.

  A few fire-blackened cans. A bucket

  without any bottom but holding

  a full measure of cottonwood leaves.

  Not much of a story. You've heard it all

  time and again—a few rusty words

  enclosing a center of darkness, an edge

  that can cut if you try prying the lid.

  An August Night

  High in the trees, cicadas weave

  a wickerwork of longing.

  In the shadows between two houses,

  a man peers into a room

  through the hum of a window fan,

  the fragrance of his hair oil

  like distant music, far too faint

  to awaken the naked girl

  on the clean linen of moonlight.

  The Urine Specimen

  In the clinic, a sun-bleached shell of stone

  on the shore of the city, you enter

  the last small chamber, a little closet

  chastened with pearl—cool, white, and glistening—

  and over the chilly well of the toilet

  you trickle your precious sum in a cup.

  It's as simple as that. But the heat

  of this gold your body's melted and poured out

  into a form begins to enthrall you,

  warming your hand with your flesh's fevers

  in a terrible way. It's like holding

  an organ—spleen or fatty pancreas,

  a lobe from your foamy brain still steaming

  with worry. You know that just outside

  a nurse is waiting to cool it into a gel

  and slice it onto a microscope slide

  for the doctor, who in it will read your future,

  wringing his hands. You lift the chalice and toast

  the long life of your friend there in the mirror,

  who wanly smiles, but does not drink to you.

  Geronimo's Mirror

  That flash from a distant hillside,

  that firefly in the blue shadows of rock—

  that's Geronimo's mirror.

  After all of these years, he's up there

  still trying to warn us

  that the soldiers are coming.

  He sees them riding along the horizon

  in an endless line,

  sees them dipping down into the valley

  rider by rider.

  His mirror of tin, cupped in his palm,

  says they're nearer now.

  It says he can hear the black rock

  sounding under their hooves,

  can smell the sharp smoke of dust in the air.

  Now he can hear their dark voices,

  the old voices of horses,

  and the talk that is leather's.

  And now they are climbing the hill,

  that holy hill that is Geronimo's,

  but he is not afraid.

  His mirror is warning the others,

  and we are the others.

  Porch Swing in September

  The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun

  that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion

  whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,

  and a small brown spider has hung out her web

  on a line between porch post and chain

  so that no one may swing without breaking it.

  She is saying it's time that the swinging were done with,

  time that the creakin
g and pinging and popping

  that sang through the ceiling were past,

  time now for the soft vibrations of moths,

  the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,

  the cool dewdrops to brush from her work

  every morning, one world at a time.