Where on the painting
is the last stroke,
on the bust,
the last chip?
Where in the play
is the last word,
in the score,
the final note?
What made them stop?
Was there surrender
to exhaustion?
Despair or time?
Or perhaps joy?!
If now they were allowed
a second final touch,
would they?
Would you?
"Al's Hammers," I Repeat
"He's got Al's hammers,"
I hear them whisper every day,
though my hearing's not too good.
Strange, but I can't remember
any hammers. And -
who the hell is Al?
I recall, sometimes, that I worked
at a center with my friends.
But the muttering continues -
though my hearing's not too good -
that I have Al's hammers.
Well, if so, I really do not know
where they are! But when I think,
maybe I do have them?
Then, sometimes, I don't think.
So, maybe, I - ah hell!
I'll look for them tomorrow.
A Seventh Ray of Light
I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice;
had I abided by it I might have been saved
from some of my most valuable mistakes.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
Train tracks: A clanging warning bell -
a taunt to race - to run across before
the fearsome engine reaches our path.
Bobby showed no respect for trains:
one spread Bobby in foamy pink pieces
over oily black ties and gray rock fill.
I respect trains, their burning light.
A creek: Portal to kingdoms, if crossed.
I'm fine until bottom muck ebbs away.
A black void, a mouthful of green water,
ears ringing - frenzied frantic splashing.
But no crying out - only more thrashing.
Finding mud, I lunge to a grassy bank:
there are diamonds in the leaf-laced light.
Cherry tree: Trying out a rope noose.
Falling - clawing at my throat, kicking
hard, wild panic until I find the swing
from which I'd accidentally slipped.
Piercing white stars front my eyes
in a black sky, though the morning
is full of blossoms, full of gold sunlight.
Brush pile: Frosty, sodden gray fall day.
Too poor for a gun, too poor sighted
to shoot - I am always principal beater.
Finding a brush pile, I jump on top
until from matted limbs a rabbit runs.
I duck and roll as shot gun pellets whiz.
One trusts close friends in good light.
Rock bluff: Looking, not watching,
I step off into a rushing green space
as vines whip past my face and legs.
Arms thrash, hands grab at greenery
tearing at my hands until they catch -
holding me high, safe above the earth,
crying and laughing in hot sunshine.
Frozen river: Sucking in cold, tinny air.
Swimming on my back in order to see
air bubbles trapped in silver pockets
pressed up against a blue-white surface.
Stopping, hearing moaning, sighing ice.
Finally seeing a mercury mirror, rippling,
flecked blue - the air hole overhead.
Dormitory: Cold sober, running late,
I hit a glass door much too hard,
showering myself in flying shards.
An artery's flow bursts onto a wall.
Hot pain and dizziness combine
into a black cold that finally yields
in the saving angel lights of surgery.
