According to my father there were
No real rules to the game but suddenly
All the young children would break
Into a run, yelling "Up the Hill
With Buffalo Bill!" One day you found
You were too old for this and went off
To learn Nine O'Cat or Stickball or
A sort of baseball with anywhere up to
Seven outfielders and three shortstops.
My father had sometimes occasion
To draw angels -- usually in small groups
Of two or three but sometimes crowds of them.
Usually, they were stick figures with wings
And puzzled expressions. I see them at times
Looking just as he pictured them. I suspect
They didn't always look like this but assumed
My father knew what angels should look like
And adapted themselves accordingly
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
Imaginary saints deliver miracles
Almost indistinguishable from those
Of real ones; they charge less and
Rarely brag about it afterwards.
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.
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.
Carnea, the Roman goddess
Of door-hinges, has
A license to forgive sins so long
As they aren't major
And involve hardware.
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.
Entering the courtroom you must
Be prepared for anything. You may
Be tossed a robe and expected
To sit up high, rendering judgments.
Equally, you may have to put on
Clothes that don't fit, a jailhouse pallor
And a look of anxious guilt as you mutter
"Not guilty, Your Honor." Or you may
Be left almost featureless prepared
To be the spectator who's wandered in
Since it's raining and he's nowhere else to be.
When I was fifteen or so I had a series
Of the most boring dreams imaginable --
Worse, even, than Prince Genji's dream
About having fallen asleep. In my dreams
Quite ordinary things happened -- I went to school
And came home. The things I learned
Were plausible; I remained fully dressed,
Never found I had to take a test in a room
That hid itself. I did exactly as well on dream tests
As I did on real ones. My friends behaved
As they usually did. One of them told me
His sister was getting married. (If she'd been three
I might have said "I'm dreaming," but she was 26.)
Perhaps these dreams were rejected drafts
For my actual days. No harm was done; I just have
Clear memories of things that never happened.
Esther was an accomplished woman who could
Make noodles from scratch or learn a language
From her children's books or safely use for years
A kitchen knife that had a curse on it. When she died
Her four surviving daughters -- who got their noodles
From boxes -- decided the best thing to do
Would be to bury the knife and the second best thing
Would be to not tell their brothers where they buried it.
