Restoration, and: Leaving a Mark, and: Small Voyages, and: Schooldays

Restoration

Dredged from a burial ground, what's leftof his aged body in stone is torso,one leg and arm, a noseless facewith sunken eyes and down-turned mouth.He would have leaned his weight on a caneas he mourned his wife recumbent, dead,but she is gone. Even his staffis broken. What he depicts is howthe living felt about their dead,the marble ending that waits for all.

If I stand close enough he staresat me, but I'm not a missing spouse,and I must leave to walk the streetswhere a woman muffled in collared coatmight be staring beyond her strideto a child she never had or loverwho will never unlock their door again.

Let me lean tonight on elbowsover a glass of cabernet,see the reflection of your facein a polished spoon. Candle flamespulse with each breath of our passing words.Let's conspire to make such fragmentscome together when we lie downin the ending of this day, complete.

Leaving a Mark

Power went out last night. Snap, and I'm leftin dark. TV dead, no way to trustmy feet on stairs, lumps of chairs and tablescrouching between me and bed. I waited,watching candles walk in my neighbor's window.

That's when I got to thinking about what you said,depressed as you were, how no one saw you becauseyour past was locked inside and you don't wantto talk about it. So don't. Why should they listen,the young, sons or grandsons? Much too busymaking memories to waste an hour on ours.Doesn't matter they rise so fresh in the mindthat I can still whistle a tune I've not heard sungfor fifty years. Who cares I was never famous,no one knows I helped to pour concretefor the Danville bridge or served as juror the yearwe put away those crooks who torched their barns?

I know what you're afraid of—how when we goit all goes with us. Yesterday I saton the porch, watched the neighbor's kids come home,drop their books and stoop by fresh-poured pavement.They made their marks with feet and hands, initialscarved with sticks. I stood and thought I'd shakemy cane, but why betray the fool I am?They waved, picked up their books, went in to scribble.On the middle span of the bridge, if you look hard,you'll find my initials. But you would have to beon your back floating down the river to see them.

Small Voyages

Down to a dock where fog clung flatto the lake and hollow knocking was pressedclose by dense air as we draggedcanoes from their racks, out we thrustinto water so still only my handdeep on the paddle could tell it from air.In the bow I was first to enter unknownworlds of silence, my blind face leaninginto a place that might have been sleepbut for the shiver of flesh, alert,the swirling rifts we made until lightpulled aside chill gauze to revealwe were only floating on water, staringat ragged shapes of trees on shore,the sudden rise of startled loons;and slowly, pulling our weight with steadystrokes, we returned to a sun in its skyand thought we remembered who we were.

Schooldays

School was the smell of a lunchboxnever cleaned, or sneakerstossed to the back of a locker.But we were clean and combedtill recess and the first tussle,a race downhill to the treethat served as jungle gym. Someone's football arcedabove us, then it was timeagain to lean and pretendthat long division made senseof our lives, spelling was crucialto moments before we fellinto sleep and dreams that mergedand transformed faces of friends,teachers, the eyes of parents.No smells, no one demandingsense, and...