MAKING THEMSELVES USEFUL

 

One of the Japanese gods of thunder

Is a baby. When he gets in a temper other gods

Take turns carrying him up and down ladders

CRESCENTIA

 

Imaginary saints deliver miracles

Almost indistinguishable from those

Of real ones; they charge less and

Rarely brag about it afterwards.

1001

 

Because I once absent-mindedly asked

Teshub for rain he and the other Hittite Gods

Consider me a devoté. They turn up --

All thousand of them -- at the edge of my dreams

Or leave me flyers, offering to perform miracles.

Except for Tarhunt and Teshub, they've mostly

Forgotten who they were and what they did.

I plan just before I'm supposed to die

To slip in among them. Death's eyes aren't what they were

And acting purposeless? I've been practicing for years.

THREE PANELS

 

In the triptych's righthand panel

A tiny figure rows desperately

Across a broad summer's lake

If he ever reaches the shore

He'll cross into the central panel

Where a geisha, ten times his size,

Stands, wearing a shimmering kimono

With a blue-green carp swimming on it.

Boat and all, she'll lift him, 

And place him gently in the last panel

Where an umbrella with a traveler beneath it

Struggles through the snow.

ACT NOW -- SUPPLIES ARE LIMITED

 

Around five o'clock

A nonce god makes himself

From the scraps of winter light

For which the day found no use. 

Temples are thrown together; 

Miracles are distributed; 

Nameless sins are absolved.

KKEP IN MIND

 

Carnea, the Roman goddess

Of door-hinges, has 

A license to forgive sins so long

As they aren't major 

And involve hardware.

MUSETTE

 

My father's friend John Drachmann

Could've died several times in the War

But his musette bag -- a hardy confection

Of brass and canvas -- would have survived

Anything short of a direct hit by a shell

Or being doused in gasoline and set on fire.

He gave it to me when he gave away

Everything that reminded him he'd been a soldier.

My brother got his dogtags and bitterly regretted

Our mother not letting him have a spent bullet

On which John had scratched his initials.