The Law of Falling Bodies: Poems

Closing In

Closing In I know all the ways that things go wrong. Even an amateur at disaster can see There’s no detour around the rubble, no magic To sweep the past away like a dog’s dirty tail. It’s October of the wet harvest, and already The dark feels longer than the day, Cadaverous dark that lies still Under the late rain, the weeping trees. Some days, I drift through the afternoon, listening For rats gnashing their creepy teeth. Some nights, I dream of gardens in their summer green, Lilies pulling themselves up by the bootstraps. I’ve seen the first birds draft their feathers For the South, and dead leaves glide over A windfall of bruised fruit. I play solitaire With a deck missing the Queen of Hearts. There’s no use trying to repeal the love poems Because you’re frightened by two adjectives in heat Or by the years that have left you plucking at The slack and wattles of your own flesh. If I were fluent in some eccentric tongue, I would Speak my secrecies in every ear and let them slur Without crisis or injury, so they would hurt No one but me, words closing in on a cold end. • • • 50 ...