WHILE KICKING HER HEELS
In a blue wool cape and pearl earrings
a woman slumps dead against the scarred
back of a wooden bench in the Ladies Waiting Room.
A white moth flickers out of the cape’s blue hem
Kicking her heels, the twelve year old
on a bench across the room sees
how the woman’s hands have fallen away.
Only I have seen, only I
saw that wisp of hair on her forehead;
Only I, thinks the girl, have this job—
to see one great thing in the bustle of this station.
One moth, two, another and another —
the whole room is luminous.
A GIVEN
When seeds fall and wind abrades the golden rod,
when bees and finches
strip the last nourishment of summer,’
that’s when you see how time presses through
with its worn- down teeth.
Nostalgia wings its way across a busy room, grabs
your elbow, drags you backward
into that hall with two doors and one thin blue window.
Time runs its worn tongue down that pitted road
where bright wings fold up their gold at dusk.
In nearby houses supper is served, wine poured
while children splash in their baths.
Not far is a world of breakage and smoke.
Yesterday, a yearling bear leapt across the sloping path,
his teeth gaining on him day by day,
