It wasn't the weaving
She'd miss so much
As the unweaving
The unpatterning.
Long night hours
The light of a candle
Held by a maid
(Later hung
Her pale legs kicking)
If the sly king
Had drowned at sea
She'd have learned
To unspin wool
Unshear sheep
Unstring minutes
Hoping another Penelope
Might string them again
String them better.
There used to be
A fish market here
But they packed it up
Ghosts and all and
Moved it to the Bronx.
Now, very early
Muses buy and sell
Ideas for poems
My usual muse
(Quite old but sly)
Often leaves with
A small wrapped idea
And two or three others
Which somehow
Found themselves
In her purse's
Deepest depths.
On the long line for admission
To Hell stands a child. It's hard
To imagine why she's there
But there she is, fidgeting,
Holding the memory of a toy
That was blown up with her
One damned soul makes faces
To amuse her. Another starts
A long story about an elephant
And a lizard and a flying boat.
It's a very long line and, really,
What else have we to do?
Some saints spend so long in the field that at last
They're worn down, almost featureless, like spoons
With unreadable monograms and twisting handles
Which might be anything -- writhing Cupids, sleepy mermaids,
Apostles, even. Their attributes are lost or mere blobs,
Their miracles pointless, giving a duck, say, the power
To heal shattered bones and twisted hearts
Or making puddles rain themselves back into the sky.
During the War my mother's cousin Simon
Was a solider and wrote brave letters
Sometimes and funny ones other times
He'd type an original and six carbons
Sending my mother carbon four.
When he was in college he lived
In my grandparents' house and Joe
My grandfather gave him a dime
Every morning for carfare. Most mornings
Si walked so he could spend the dime
On cigarettes and coffee. He came home
With a whole heart but three years later
It broke and then his spirit went flat
And he smoked cheap tobacco in a pipe.
When I found his war letters I wondered
What had happened to make him
Scared of everything. My mother thought
It was a girl named Gretchen or perhaps
Just bad luck of which Simon always had
Enough and more than enough.
My father, I ask you to look out for
A small girl, recently dead. No kin
Of ours but, out of your kindness,
Help her; she'll be so confused
That grownups took the trouble
To kill a five year old.
While you lived you could never
Ignore a child's distress; even Death,
I think, couldn't change that in you.
