Kirby Congdon
During the emergency,
the familiar faces of the dead
ride by on their bicycles
with polite nods of recognition.
I forget the name,
what he did or even does,
though I thought I knew
who the man was.
His bike was red,
or could be blue.
But this, surely,
is a land for living.
Will they print my poems
and, then, if read,
remember them--a line or two?
Receding down the street,
in the rear-view mirror,
as frenetic as ever,
I discern that familiar figure:
my own, retreating,
the frantic wheels turning,
back there where faces fade
and the old day's light,
wearing out, burns away;
for it's late;
even the guidebooks
are out of date.
As I find my way alone,
the old ride home remains
a fond road well-marked,
yet each dark street-sign's inscribed
in the worn letters, numbers broken,
of low, and vulgar tongues
long gone unspoken
with vague prophecies
of some fate unknown
of which this uncertain state
is, somehow, now, a certain token.
With a signal, I make my turn.
The works are out of order,
the fixtures, disconnected.
The switches are jammed
in the wrong positions.
The light bulbs, burned out,
sparkle in short circuits
around their sputtering sockets
like heat lightning
before a late summer storm.
Needles spin in their gauges,
predicting, in each erratic span,
catastrophe.
The sun, fused in place, is disoriented;
west, somewhere, is as far as it is strange.
The shadows of the stars
come from the wrong direction.
But the kitchen door swings on its hinges;
the knob turns as always;
and just across the sill, noon's light
shows so clearly: there's nothing
to be afraid of:
I say, there is nothing there;
over the sagging arc of the lintel
it's only a house that's fallen down,
the rafters of an old roof,
leaking, cave in.
The walls, room by room,
move, bend and buckle;
that's how things are;
decay parades itself
in the face of time.
You can see, if you turn to look,
that the garden is empty,
each bloom, neatly, gone by;
no one's there
and the mailbox holds
the usual brochures
no one believes in any more.
There is nothing to be afraid of.