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.

BOREAS

 

The North Wind has been taking subtlety lessons

From the old women who practice tai chi

Behind the Federal Courthouse on Centre Street.

After holding himself infinitely still He

Gently flicks the uttermost end of one thin branch.

ANOTHER MUSE

 

Hesychia, silence's muse, can be found

Just where she's been since 1928, living

With her pet, a rust-colored spider

In a small room in Elmira, New York. 

The rest of the house has been gone

For many years so visitors must first climb

The memory of a staircase, avoiding

The middle of third one from the top

Which always squeaked.