VISITING RAGG

Putting on the name I never use
I went to visit Ragg whom a poet
Wrote about when my great grandfather
Was eight and spending his days
Wondering if he should allow his thoughts
Which had been much about frogs and beetles
To stray towards God and girls
Though not necessarily in that order.
Ragg, being in prison, is always at home.
She accepted the chocolate I brought
And read my palm. "Your great grand father
Had red hair. He brought me tears.
Your grandfather had strange eyes.
He was so strong! He might have moved mountains;
He sang for me. Your father knew
The languages of animals and brought me messages
From the King of the Cats. He said if you came
You might tell me a story. Begin!"

ANSWERS

Answers to questions I should have asked
Haphazardly scattered, still abroad in the world:
A bit of daylight, lost in a mirror since August 9, 1938;
A pocket watch; some notes from The William Tell Overture;
An unclaimed silver medal; a hand setting a pebble
On top of a gravestone; a story which traveled
Forty years to find its only true audience
Silently waiting for it, alone in the crowded house

Drinking black tea from a chipped blue cup.

SURVIVING

The undersized boy
In the great church thinks
He is there to slip a coin
Maybe two out of the box
Not knowing the church
And most of the congregation
Will not survive the war
So that the colored windows,
The marble pillars, the pretty girl
Flirting with the sacristan --
Along with the fat priest
Who said nothing when he saw
A small hand with a coin --
Exist now only because the boy
Grew up and one day
Gave them all to his daughters
In a story the youngest one
Writes down when she is old.