Wraiths

Wraiths

Strawman

On a brown slope I stretch my arms, a slight
Wind through my sleeves. Across my chest
The leaf-motes snag before they resume their flight.
My left is east; my right is west.

I frighten autumn crows with all I'm not:
These pilfered clothes, this foddered head.
Like stalks that deafen me with crackling rot,
I'm crucified and left for dead.

An effigy's deceit confirms what's real.
I shrink and fray. I shed like trees.
Like the dead man who wore the clothes I steal,
I mock the world's rigidities.

He worked this field and joined its loss.
He grew the tree that grew my cross.

Salmon Bricks

Their house is sold, the German bloodline dried.
The mantel's dust-drifts hold the cratered spaces
Where braided palm and relics petrified.

The rotted wainscoting will soon be pried,
The hearthstone bared. Will faint Teutonic traces
Leap in a wafted scent of sausage tied

To smokehouse hooks? Though the Wohllebens have died,
Their world is undisturbed. On staircases
That wind to latch-tight doors, old scuffmarks hide.

Their wraiths might crowd the cellar way or glide
Coldly beneath the alley gate, in places
Salvaged from what the sun has clarified.

The headboard's burled veneer is stretched as wide
As eyes imagining their gas-lit faces.
Some afterglow, some presence must abide

In horsehair plaster. Two spheres will coincide.
Their time will speak when pewter moonlight paces
The halls. They animate the planks, reside
Forever here—at home and Janus-eyed.