The
Caregiver's Perspective
When cells shut down, dependable couriers died, And messages received were left unread, Leaving the saint remorseless. Without sin, The body having sacrificed itself, The angel-elect's pure thoughts lay undisturbed, As if she could not feel her earthbound feet Or notice that her wings were held aloft By worshippers, not by sacred airs. Bloodshed among the holy out of heaven Is unremarked except by those who bear The weight of rites that can't be left unserved. Their sweet magic will be unpraised except In wept confessions only God can hear. |
Argument
One Sunday Morning
The plate, at rest on gray, unwashed formica, Rattled, a shocking sound at six a.m., When echoes should have been from kissing, not From unrepentant shouts and curses. Nurses Ought to have been called to palliate the wound, But those with senses trained to smell out blood Would not have found a bruise, and might suspect A ruse, no news in their profession. Later, A fork, singing off-key against the china While chasing chips of bacon left behind By fingers more attuned to grasping pork Than trained to speak affectionate forgiveness, Stabbed porcelain, which could or should have bled, Its broad white cheek split open. Spilling sherds As tears and sparing useless words, the plate, All Humpty-Dumpy white, went egg-shell silent, A shattered husk beneath a spousal wall. |
Still
Life With Swastika
Upsetting our afternoon of gin and tonics, And during his usual rhetorical display Condemning every rat on Earth to Hell, A long-time friend unveiled a set of fangs Whose bloody tips he'd kept concealed behind Glossy, pale lips. Suspicion should have spoken, used its own nose; suspicion should have listened Rather than purred—a kittenish whore to friendship's Poor facsimile, charm. But no alarm Had sounded, not when flies were buzzing round New blood, still sticky wet in pools – what fools His friends and colleagues played—the rules? No looking— And what would they have seen beyond their shoes? When colorless Jews were found with telltale marks; When dobermans began to lose their courage And tucked their tails and folded their ears and howled; When Gothic light and shadow signaled threats Emerging, flapping, from an open window, What was the Name they should have spoken? Unmirrored, It could possess a room with feral wit, Alarm a cat, chase dogs, unhinge a bird With songs that could undo the deafest Greek, While they who smilingly gathered in his words, The dark opinions that would murder millions, Sat with their throats exposed, their eyes averted. They gazed at the polished gleam of his forehead, appalled By thoughts skulls bore. And how deeply they felt Contempt for his dark malice! But out of sight, Giggling co-conspirators, they warranted A tyrant's rule by shouting inside closets; Resisting commands with a hesitating step Before they clicked their heels in grim assent. A boy's murderous dreams are far, far bolder; The ghostly father that he stabs is dead. |