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The
Good News
Imagine—
Someone
you’ve never heard of died,
someone of importance, an
ambassador,
a member of Council, a shipping magnate,
an
advisor to the King.
This stranger was traveling in
a hurry—
a yacht, a private plane,
a helicopter spiraling the islands,
a limousine aimed at
treacherous hills
to a shining resort
and met
with a terrible fate.
Such largesse in tragedy!
Euros, rupees, golden coins,
a heap of green bills,
and
they asked specifically for you,
one honest soul in the
electrified wilderness.
Across the globe’s
worried patchwork
of brightly colored territories,
through
the tangle of wires and war-torn trees,
it
gives you a start (never mind the cost
of transfer
fees).
The Good News singing on the luminous
screen--
you can feel it in your heart: all is not lost.
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The
Guest
In
every room she enters
paint
cracks on the walls
light
bulbs blink and burst
like
collapsing stars.
Her
limbs bend
into
tormented origami,
a
theater of stunned statuary.
Did
we invite her? someone whispers.
They
worry for the trusting hands
of
plants reaching from pottery.
Where’s
the cat? The dog?
Are
the children asleep?
Every
space she occupies
swells
and contracts.
Family
photographs
tremble
on their nails,
the
faces stilled in suspense.
Do
we know you? they ask with their eyes.
Whose
voice is it that rides the air
like
a shredded ribbon
caught
in a fan?
She
calms, she sits, she smoothes
the
coiled scarf around her neck.
She
checks her watch; it’s almost time to go--
it’s
just not fair.
I’m
not sure how she got here.
(Did
anyone see her leave?)
The
music dissolves, the crumbs
are
cleared. The glaze of liquor
burns
the lipstick from her glass
and
disappears.
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In
Transit
She
was anchored
on
the sidewalk,
her
face eclipsed by
the
back of his head
as
they stood together,
his
body turning
toward
the curb,
his right foot already
in
the street
its
sole
inches
from cigarette ash
that
a funnel of air
churned
and let go--
her
arm still around
his
neck, their faces
close
but barely touching
a
kiss either coming
or
ending
when
I drove past them
never
to learn
whether
he delayed and
missed
the light or
whether
she stayed
and
watched him cross
to
the other side
as
I was pulled into
the
burning mouth
of
the Holland Tunnel.
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