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Change, move, dead clock, that this fresh day May break with dazzling light to these sick eyes. Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen, That time may find its sound again, and cleanse Whatever it is that a wound remembers After the healing ends. Originally appeared in the October 1947 issue of Poetry magazine.

When Mrs. McCausland comes to mind she slips through a small gap in oblivion and walks down her front steps, in her hand a small red velvet pillow she tucks under the head of Old Jim Schreiber, who is lying dead-drunk against the curb of busy Market Street. Then she turns, labors up the steps and is gone . . . A small story. Or rather, the memory of a story I heard as a boy. The witnesses are not to be found, the steps lead nowhere, the pillow has collapsed into a thread of dust . . . Do the dead come back only to remind us they, too, were once among the living, and that the story we make of our lives is a mystery of luminous, but uncertain moments, a shuffle of images we carry toward sleep— Mrs. McCausland with her velvet pillow, Old Jim at peace—a story, like a small clearing in the woods at night, seen from the windows of a passing train.

The fire was so fierce, So red, so gray, so yellow That, along with the land, It burned part of the sky Which stayed black in that corner For years, As if it were night there Even in the daytime, A piece of the sky burnt And which then Could not be counted on Even by the birds. It was a regular fire— Terrible—we forget this About fire—terrible And full of pride. It intended to be Big, no regular fire. Like so many of us, It intended to be more And this time was. It was not better or worse Than any other fire Growing up. But this time, it was a fire At just the right time And in just the right place— If you think like a fire— A place it could do something big. Its flames reached out With ten thousand pincers, As if the fire Were made of beetles and scorpions Clawing themselves to get up, Pinching the air itself And climbing, So many sharp animals On each other’s backs Then into the air itself, Ten thousand snaps and pinches At least, So that if the sky Was made of something, It could not get away this time. Finally the fire Caught the sky, Which acted like a slow rabbit Which had made a miscalculation. It didn’t believe this could happen And so it ran left, Right into the thin toothpicks of flames, Too fast to pull back, The sky with all its arms, Hands, fingers, fingernails, All of it Disappeared. Goodbye. The sky stayed black For several years after. I wanted to tell you This small story About the sky. It’s a good one And explains why the sky Comes so slowly in the morning, Still unsure of what’s here. But the story is not mine. It was written by fire, That same small fire That wanted to come home With something of its own To tell, And it did, A small piece of blue in its mouth.

snowbound homebound hidebound hamstrung hogtied in a corner up a tree down the river nosedive headway deadmarch footloose pointblank playground

Tip their mouths open to the sky. Turquoise, amber, the deep green with fluted handle, pitcher the size of two thumbs, tiny lip and graceful waist. Here we place the smallest flower which could have lived invisibly in loose soil beside the road, sprig of succulent rosemary, bowing mint. They grow deeper in the center of the table. Here we entrust the small life, thread, fragment, breath. And it bends. It waits all day. As the bread cools and the children open their gray copybooks to shape the letter that looks like a chimney rising out of a house. And what do the headlines say? Nothing of the smaller petal perfectly arranged inside the larger petal or the way tinted glass filters light. Men and boys, praying when they died, fall out of their skins. The whole alphabet of living, heads and tails of words, sentences, the way they said, “Ya’Allah!” when astonished, or “ya’ani” for “I mean”— a crushed glass under the feet still shines. But the child of Hebron sleeps with the thud of her brothers falling and the long sorrow of the color red.

Four feet up, under the bruise-blue Fingered hat-felt, the eyes begin. The sly brim Slips over the sky, street after street, and nobody Knows, to stop it. It will cover The whole world, if there is time. Fifty years’ Start in gray the eyes have; you will never Catch up to where they are, too clever And always walking, the legs not long but The boots big with wide smiles of darkness Going round and round at their tops, climbing. They are almost to the knees already, where There should have been ankles to stop them. So must keep walking all the time, hurry, for The black sea is down where the toes are And swallows and swallows all. A big coat Can help save you. But eyes push you down; never Meet eyes. There are hands in hands, and love Follows its furs into shut doors; who Shall be killed first? Do not look up there: The wind is blowing the building-tops, and a hand Is sneaking the whole sky another way, but It will not escape. Do not look up. God is On High. He can see you. You will die.

Once again you’ve fallen for the lure of his deferral, his quick eyes’ brightness slinking from the pantry of the righteous. Nothing half so sleek as self-licked fur. Not that he forgot your boots, or left A single high-aimed compliment unturned. He’ll double back, affect to be concerned when he’s the secret reason you’re bereft, embracing you with his Houdini hold, repeating chewed-off bits of what you say so he seems loyal, you the turncoat jay. You’d think by now you’d learn to be consoled to know the soul he sold’s not yours but his, though where yours was a hollow feeling is.

ke pwoahn Pohnpei I told him as we kissed is that a good thing? he asked hell yea I wanted to say replaced it with another kiss inhaling the mix of last night’s sakau en Pohnpei seir en wai, sweat rain intoxicating taking me home he left that smell behind it would barely linger by the time he reached his destination I was headed for it so the smell stayed bittersweet and blue on my skin, in my hair I carried it with me there where it grew mixed with mangoes, coughs, handshakes, pigs, babies, and old people I’m back it now reeks won’t wash away with the other smells get in my car it hits me pungent remnants of the mwaramwar he left behind.

Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small) And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul. Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned; “For,” said the paper, “when this war is done The men's first instinct will be making homes. Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes, It being certain war has just begun. Peace would do wrong to our undying dead,— The sons we offered might regret they died If we got nothing lasting in their stead. We must be solidly indemnified. Though all be worthy Victory which all bought. We rulers sitting in this ancient spot Would wrong our very selves if we forgot The greatest glory will be theirs who fought, Who kept this nation in integrity.” Nation?—The half-limbed readers did not chafe But smiled at one another curiously Like secret men who know their secret safe. (This is the thing they know and never speak, That England one by one had fled to France Not many elsewhere now save under France). Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week, And people in whose voice real feeling rings Say: How they smile! They're happy now, poor things.

There is a Smile of Love And there is a Smile of Deceit And there is a Smile of Smiles In which these two Smiles meet And there is a Frown of Hate And there is a Frown of disdain And there is a Frown of Frowns Which you strive to forget in vain For it sticks in the Hearts deep Core And it sticks in the deep Back bone And no Smile that ever was smild But only one Smile alone That betwixt the Cradle & Grave It only once Smild can be But when it once is Smild Theres an end to all Misery