BELONGING

 

My Grandfather Joe was a changeling

Small and precise and wary and 

Out of place in a large, vague family.

His brothers and sisters wore glasses;

He could count the feathers on a bird

Three miles away. (I started to write four

But his ghost shook its head at me).

He was not one to forget an injury

Over time he found that the grudges

His soft-natured kin couldn't keep

All came to live with him. 

Through intermediaries

The demons who'd left him as a joke

Offered to take hin back but his family

Refused. He knew this because Lena,

His sister, told him during a chess match,

Hoping to put him off his game.

AFTER FIRE

 

Suppose for just one day

Iron's child knows how to burn 

Sunset makes things as before 

Except the world's full

Of drifting steel ashes

SUPPLY PROBLEMS

 

Thx for yr order

Regret infrm o/o nightingales

Cn supply nightmares, nightjars, nightrobes,

Martingales or gallowglasses.

Lightning rods on order expect soonest

We appreciate yr bsnes 

SUBSTITUTION

 

During the present

Emergency my great uncle

Dan has agreed, grudgingly,

To play Hermes but only the

Psychopomp bits. Caravans to

Hades will leave each

Afternoon at 3:45 and arrive

By 11 the next morning because

That's how long the Twentieth

Century train took to get from New

York to Chicago when Dan

Rode it in 1938. Those wishing to book

In advance are advised to purchase

Tickets from Dan's wife Jenny and

Not from Jenny's brother Joe.

 

BREAKING THE LAW

 

The purpose, old Ruskin said, of Art

Is to arrest a sunset. Never mind the charge;

We'll figure one out later. Mixed, unlicensed colors

Have smeared streaks across the sky?

Rely on it; something illegal's happened!

ACTOR

 

An ancient Greek actor, if he'd read the manuals,

Spent hours before performing lying

On his back, summoning the voice

Of the character he was going to play. 

He'd lie down again afterwards,

Letting the voice and character go.

This was a dangerous moment; 

An interruption might leave him half Orestes

Or two-thirds Queen Jocasta.

 

AVE

 

His wife had little money so the tombstone 

Was roughly made and the lettering's uneven.

After two thousand years, though, it still

Wishes you well, passerby, and wants you to know

That Stracco the gladiator fought fairly, won eight fights,

And would've won nine but for a treacherous judge.