The two girls -- Jenny and Lena -- played chess
And tried in turn to teach each new baby brother
But Barney, Pinney and Ase were born poker players
Impatient with a game where bluffs and tells
Played so small a part. With the youngest boy,
My grandfather Joe, they found success.
When he was nine or so he began, I don't know why,
Keeping count of his wins and losses against them
Continuing to meticulously alter the numbers,
Occasionally, for years after his sisters died.
When my brother decided our parents hated him
And always had, he cast free the stories
They told of how clever, lovable a child he'd been
I've kept them for him -- along with his two
Imaginary friends and his grief for a real one
Run over by a bus -- against the unlikely day
He wants to hear them one last time.
With Hermes missing, some of my relatives
Take over his duties. My Great Uncle Dan,
Old and unrelenting, is acting god of travelers.
My grandfather Joe answers thieves' prayers.
Edith, my father's sister who died young,
Has a provisional psychopomp's license
But, it's become plain, doesn't actually know
Where Hell is. She leads an increasing troop of the dead
Around the City all day; at night she puts them to bed
In the attic; as pro tem god of merchants I'm exploring
The commercial possibilities of dead souls.
St. Bernard once excommunicated
An army of flies who were buzzing about
Inside a church. Startled to find they had
Immortal souls, the flies left but
Their descendants buzz still. One of them
Buzzes about me now, saying "You think
A swatter frighten me, I, who've been cut off
From the illimitable grace of God?"
My slow-witted and elderly shadow
Needs to stop drinking. Last night
It accused a teetotal street lamp
Of cruelly lopping off some vital inches
Of its true stature and making its head
A mere elongated blob. It was all I could do
To get it home; (to avoid a scene I agreed
To crawl the last few blocks).
A hot day; God rests in the shadow of an atom
Nor sleeping nor waking, sorting through loose-woven prayers
Answering them any old how, dispatching angels
So small even He isn't sure they're real.
