Robert Gibb

Come March we’d find them In the five-and-dimes, Furled tighter than umbrellas About their slats, the air In an undertow above us Like weather on the maps. We’d play out lines Of kite string, tugging against The bucking sideways flights. Readied for assembly, I’d arc the tensed keel of balsa Into place against the crosspiece, Feeling the paper snap Tautly as a sheet, then lift The almost weightless body Up to where it hauled me Trolling into the winds— Knotted bows like vertebrae Flashing among fields Of light. Why ruin it By recalling the aftermaths? Kites gone down in tatters, Kites fraying like flotsam From the tops of the trees.

I think he knows I’m alive, having come down The three steps of the back porch And given me a good once over. All afternoon He’s been moving back and forth, Gathering odd bits of walnut shells and twigs, While all about him the great fields tumble To the blades of the thresher. He’s lucky To be where he is, wild with all that happens. He’s lucky he’s not one of the shadows Living in the blond heart of the wheat. This autumn when trees bolt, dark with the fires Of starlight, he’ll curl among their roots, Wanting nothing but the slow burn of matter On which he fastens like a small, brown flame.