Omen, and: Loon

OMEN / Edward Hirsch I lie down on my side in the moist grass And drift into a fitful half-sleep, listening To the hushed sound of wind in the trees. The moon comes out to stare—glassy, one-eyed— But then turns away from the ground, smudged. It's October, and the nights are getting cold; The sky is tinged with purple, speckled red. The clouds gather like an omen above the house And I can't stop thinking about my closest friend Suffering from cancer in a small, airless ward In a hospital downtown. At 37 he looks Boyish and hunted, fingered by illness, scared. When I was a boy the summer nights were immense— Clear as a country lake, pure, bottomless. The stars were like giant kites, casting loose. . . The fall nights were different—schoolbound, close— With too many stormy clouds, too many rules. The rain was a hammer banging against the house, Beating against my head. Sometimes Td wake up In the middle of a strange dream, coughing And lost, unable to breathe in my sleep. My friend says the pain is like a mule Kicking him in the chest, again and again, Until nothing else but the pain seems real. Tonight the wind whispers a secret to the trees, Something stark and unsettling, something terrible Since the yard begins to tremble, shedding leaves. I know that my closest friend is going to die And I can feel the dark sky tilting on one wing, Shuddering with rain, coming down around me. 70 · The Missouri Review LOON / Edward Hirsch Tonight I heard a loon cry, I heard the record of a single loon crying on an icy black lake in the distance, its one clear note— liquid, plaintive, pure— piercing the cold December air like a knife against the heart, like a blues singer wailing in the dark, and I thought about my younger sister, her years on a psychiatrist's couch, her low mournful phone calls at night, her anguished explanations, her voice like a loon that has cut itself loose from the other birds and is now calling across a frozen lake for help. The Missouri Review · 72 Lasüü Z^JUUWftß CM SUNMTS, DAD WOULD DROP US OFF AT 'THE BARN* THtATIR TO SEE A TRIPLE FEATWE 5UCH ASTHE CURJE OF THE MUMMYl TOMBVDlE MONSTER DIE". ^.!¦».!?^?.?.»»«^; WHILE MY BROTHER WAS BUYING AMMO CmOSTLY MIlKDUOS) I LOOKED FOR A SEAT NEAR THE CUTE BOYS SO I COULD STARE AT THEM DURlNS the movie like a mysterious StRANCEROR GO ON« AND FAlMT ON THEM DURINCTHe SCARY PARTS a WÊmm AVf BROTHEP. HAD A WAY OF 8EC0MINC lTHE HERO OF THEAUDIENCE, USUALLY THRMKH DEADLY AIM, WHICH HAD BEEN KNOWN TO BRING IN THE EK WJOXSr. He HATED THE MUMMY BECAUSE if WAS FAKEY AND COULDN'T DO NOTHVNG. ANXOMC Could Run Behind THE AVUMMY AND KICK IT IN THe BVTT W BROTHERS SUGGESTION ON HOW TO IMPROVE THE MUMMY WAS. 6WE IT A DEADLY SMELL.!«a.- '----------SAY qvt«lYOLO CHAf ·? ?«? *««; &a???\?????>?»i'jianaivj(S¡¡S JVML^-Ur*7tV.LT-I¿tvAA'jMsiMsi^Tt THÈ BEST PART OF THE DAY WAS THE RADE HOME ViHEN WE WERE ALVOWED ONE SOCK EACH BUT ONtX IN THEARM-i cnxss ?ae?? ...