Interval
- Interval
It shouldn’t be rare, this abilityto sit quietly in history, a statueof St. Francis tucked among woodytrunks of old lilac—a kind ofdopey looking saint my sister gave meafter her husband quit the ministryleft her with the girlsand became an architect over in Ames.On today’s date, a comedianand a salesperson of air timeare divorcing down my block.Their teenage daughter fronts a punk bandso collapse immediately becomes chorus.A looming cloud formationthreatens my biking plans, as distant nail gunsfasten down roofs. Prayer,an idea, circles like birdsas a breeze sets the chime.Two translucent insects hoverabove irregular stalks of grassand two families down the alleyhave lost sons in the war.Dogen Marty tells me“if you’re not afraid of deathyou’re afraid of fear.”And I hate the angerthat spilled out of me yesterdaywhen I yelled at my children for simple carelessness.Marty’s trying to help meregain my composure but I think Ipretend, mainly, to understand my motives.In the popular stories Betsy writes [End Page 158] which I’ve been reading this morningin a plastic chair that will outlive me,the emotional life, inflectedby the brightness of wit,puts its arm around the intellectand leads it back inside. [End Page 159]
William Stobb is the author of five poetry collections, including two in the Penguin Poets series. He serves as chair of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission, as associate editor of Conduit, and as assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.
