Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994

I See a Truck

ever more slowly, I leave notes such as this on the steps. There must be an end to them and I will get to it, just as did the builders, if only I were sure now that these stairs were built by human hands. East Bronx In the street two children sharpen knives against the curb. Parents leaning out the window above gaze and think and smoke and duck back into the house to sit on the toilet seat with locked door to read of the happiness of two tortoises on an island in the Pacific— always alone and always the sun shining. I See a Truck I see a truck mowing down a parade, people getting up after to follow, dragging a leg. On a corner a cop stands idly swinging his club, the sidewalksjammed with mothers and baby carriages. No one screams or speaks. From the tail end of the truck a priest and a rabbi intone their prayers, a jazz band bringing up the rear, surrounded by dancers and lovers. A bell rings and a paymaster drives through, his wagon filled with pay envelopes 68 | Poems of the 1960s he hands out, even to those lyingdead or fornicating on the ground. It is a holiday called "Working for a Living." All Quiet For Robert Bly Written at the start of one of our bombingpauses over Vietnam How come nobody is being bombedtoday? I want to know, being a citizen of this country and a family man. You can't take my fate in your hands, without informing me. I can blow up a bomb or crush a skull— whoever started this peace without advising me through a news leak at which I could have voiced aprotest, running my whole family off a cliff For Medgar Even They're afraid of me because I remind them of the ground. The harder they step on me the closer I am pressed to earth, and hard, hard they step, growing more frightened and vicious. Will I live? They will lie in the earth buried in me and above them a tree will grow for shade. 69 ...