Daguerreotype
The Turk is on the roof again, the neighbor boy crying on the lawn.
It has all gone to hell and the spring no consolation.
Just a hum as the bugs awake and the roots think of green and nothing.
The cars cross the bridge and the bolt gives way just a little more.
What a day that one will be.
Rushing water, bumper chromed in sunlight as the car bubbles under.
But maybe first another plane will land in the yard or the shed burn to dust.
Have the railroad ties been removed from their stacks
and the tracks come in from Omaha?
What dark tunneling will bring you here?
You, distantly crossing this white river again and again.
I will set the teacups on edge, wait for their clank.
I will dress the dog in his breeches.
When the sun slips away to its own dark pondering,
I will read of someone far away and his end at the guillotine.
What will cozy up to the wall in the night?
What will sleep in the garden?
We’ve played the game of counting till we’re red with worry.
I look for smoke in the hills, an alignment of clouds,
broken twigs in the underbrush.
Birds hop in the leaves and the dog’s ears twitch.
But what? What will the half-light dredge up?
What will the song be, the one we’ll sing when you’re in sight?
How will the feet of the madmen go on reaching the ground?
