ON THE STYX

 

Though the weight of a ghost is slight it isn't

Nothing and 175 entering at once have made

The boat ride low in the water. At first

The children are impressed by how serious

It is to be dead, looking over the edges

("They're called gunwales," says Dina)

At the skeletal fish or up at the grey birds

Hovering in the windless sky but then

Laila makes a face at the other Laila

And they both start giggling helplessly.

MEETING AN ANGEL

 

My father knew the languages of men

And ducks and cats and dogs and would surely

Have spoken to an angel outright if he met one

Afterwards, my mother would have said

"Nat, what was the angel's name and why

Was he standing in the rain? Does he like

Being an angel? Does he like his boss?

Does he get lonely?"

                                        My father would've answered

"Patroosh, we didn't talk about any of that."

"Tchah! He was waiting for you to ask;

Next time, I'll go with you."

TWENTY-SEVEN

 

The old moon's attendants roll her out

From the storage shed and, not without effort,

Hoist her back into the sky

PARKWOOD

 

An angel has been hanging about Parkwood Cemetery
For weeks now, standing by this grave or that
Occasionally doing absurdly small miracles --
Coaxing a dead weed back to life, fixing a gravestone's crack
Or inserting questions marks at the end of epitaphs.

Sometimes he choreographs the rain
So it falls in checkerboard fashion
Or only on people born in years ending in 6.
There’ve been complaints but the superintendent
Says he's powerless unless the angel violates
Rule 713(h), governing unlicensed resurrections.

TRANSLATION

 

My machine, set to the task of translating

Joseph Roth, sends me a note that Roth's ghost,

Currently haunting the rooms he'd have rented

If he'd fled to New York in 1939 instead

Of staying in Paris to drink himself to death,

Has offered to do the job cheaper and better.

APPARITION

 

The ghost has arrived on time or almost

But seems in no hurry to begin his routine

He blinks a few times, stretches, looks out

The open window at the night where a bird

And a bat are hospitably sharing a branch.

"Well," says the woman sitting bolt upright

(She rarely sits any other way) on her bed

"Can we get on with it? Let's see some haunting!

I'm prepared to be harrowed; I'm more than ready

To experience agonies of remorse or grief. My heart

Is resigned to burning in my breast; my soul

Has prudently taken a holiday. My nerves, though, 

Cannot long abide this foolish delay."

MOVING

 

Through a crack in the frame the image of my father

Makes his way out of the picture.  He's in

No hurry to make his escape; he knew that someday 

There'd be just such a crack. He means

To check on folks in other pictures, perhaps

Seeing how his folks are doing in that photo

Taken at a seder in 1947 but pauses,

Waiting for my mother's image to come with him.