Washington Literary Review

We might be squished by trucks; no question there.
But planning on it goes a bit too far,
no matter what my learned colleague says
in bold print headlines. Hope might make more sense—
or try on some days. And besides, why “trucks”?
Why plural, when a single modest truck
is fully adequate to flatten us
beyond the recognition of our peers?

So that’s the first objection. Secondly,
why all the fuss about complete ID
in pockets, glove compartments, and on screens?
Imagine our relations sipping tea
while watching basketball: why interrupt?
So they can be distressed before the crew
has scraped us off the pavement? Give them time:
they just might sleep tonight; that never hurt—

and frankly, it’s closed casket anyway:
we’re talking trucks remember. So that’s two.
But mostly, I object to that word “plan.”
Why bother? Well, unless you just love trucks.
But me, I’m open-minded; I’m okay with
Volkswagons, pneumonia—asteroids.
Whatever floats your boat, but think it through:
if you don’t care, they’ll do the planning, too.

Some injuries you simply don’t forgive,
not when they’re done deliberately—you know,
“malice aforethought” and all that. But so
what else is new? Assuming you survive
it could be worse, and frankly, he won’t care.
Forget it and move on? It’s worth a try.
He had no right contractually to die
without express consent; it’s quite unfair,
and I suggest you say so. Then again,
the audience you want is hard to find,
and while I’m sure that nobody will mind
an exercise of your due rights, domain
is problematic. So, while I conclude
the law’s your side, I’m afraid you’re screwed.

We suck up trees like vacuums—bushy tails
of squirrels dragged backwards, suctioned, till the ears
are swallowed: gone. And grab that plumbing crew
nearby the bulldozer with lowered scoop.
Absorbed, extracted; all that sight and sound
and 3-D scurry soaked up and consumed
by anaconda-minded passersby:

omnivorous observers. Bottled up
like fizzy soda: little frantic squirrels
on squeezed-tight trees near hungry-metal scoops,
with thoughts attached, like larva: stirring things.
The tree trunks want to suck their stomachs in
to not-touch metal mouths: all wavy-wood,
like light through water. Tiny boneless hugs

curl round their limbs, protective: pancake squirrels,
like crepes afraid of toothpicks. But the picks
grow long and hoary; frosted, reaching out
from long-jawed dozers. Stop it: look away—
which pops the cap off. Out they come, all three:
trunks stiff as highways for the plumped-up squirrels,
scoop lowered for the chomp. Our eyes move on;

inhaling houses, and releasing squirrels
who promptly jump and scamper somewhere else.

They topple over time, like circle-stones
at Stonehenge, or like missing teeth: a gap.
And those still standing take a few steps in
to close the circle for you: narrowing.
Don’t look for those gone missing;
focus in. We’re left,
we love you.

Microscope: an insect under glass.
Now magnify: the earwig disappears,
But that left pincer is a lobster’s claw.
Work used to ebb with evening. Shrink the field,
And now you live to work. Engulfed:
it fills your screen. At length,
becomes you

shrink like needle-eyes: a tiny cleft,
a steel-rimmed door touch-shut so that a slit
of light peers through at angles. One round eye
left peering through the crack: a long hard stare
picks out an orange chink of face,
the lip-stripes moving:
love you.

1.
How to explain?
Suddenly
she lies in pain
amid debris—

orphaned fingers,
blood-stained blouse—
a scream that lingers
in her razed house.

A girl who talks
to bleeding palms—
around her blocks
and carpet bombs.

2.
A pilot shrouds
the truth and smiles
amid the clouds
three hundred miles

back home to base.
He cannot tell
which was whose face.
High over hell,

his stealth’s black wings
still mock the night,
and fallen things
in morning light.

After so many years, how to praise him?
Homeric epithets won’t cut it
—No sacker of cities, no tamer of horses there.
He just taught high-school science

In a one-horse town. Two-horse really. We were
“The corn-cob pipe capital of the world.”
When we asked him a question he couldn’t answer,
He said he would look it up. He always did,

Even better, taught us how to do it ourselves.
When he gave us a problem in class
We raced to be first to answer: MV2
I did in my head, not always faster than others.

Thanks to Mr. Djurling, we were fast, we were good,
And never had an accident
In the lab. We watched the monochrome yellow
Of sodium burning once it was out of the oil

That kept it safe, learned not to play with potassium
Chlorate—no big bangs for us.
Mr. Djurling knew how to get our attention.
Once in an exam he gave us a pretty problem:

A curtain rod of such a size and weight
Falling so many feet
Penetrating a man’s skull so many inches
–Quantify the force of deacceleration.

Afterwards, acerb and almost cheerful,
He told us it really happened.
And if this gives you the creeps, you haven’t had
A teacher as good and grim as Mr. Djurling.

Footnote: Washington, Missouri, called itself “The corn-cob pipe
capital of the world.

Hiroshima Day plus sixty, and still
Surprised to be alive.
So long ago and strange, a week too full

Of “frightful queerness.” Though my first fright was tame.
Reading too much Lovecraft
On an empty stomach kept me awake. All night

The noise of the river reminded me of slime,
Till I left my canvas cot
To sleep in the backseat of the car, insulated

From the foul sound. Next morning the Meremec
Ran green and clean as ever,
And I could digest the whole “Dunwich Horror.”

In the shallows I bruised my feet walking
Barefoot on the rocks.
When Dad came back from town with groceries and news

The headlines were black, big as funerals in the glare
Of our tent’s carbide lantern.
Now we’d done it, just like in that book hinting

One bomb could kill a city. Most kids my age
Skipped that paragraph.
Not me. Soon I was learning the alphabet

Of fear, numb spell of alpha, beta, gamma,
Till in the Sixties bombers
That missed their first landing runs at Pease

Circled low over my roof, drag chutes billowing
Behind. At the gate
SAC proclaimed “Peace Is Our Profession,”

But that was public. Among themselves they sang
A different tune that once
Sold toothpaste: “You’ll wonder where the yellow went

When we sow H-bombs though the Orient.” A million
Laughs, a million deaths.
Still for me it’s Hiroshima Day plus sixty.

Footnotes: “Frightful queerness” comes from H. G. Well’s last
despairing book, Mind at the End of Its Tether. The book that
mentioned the possibility of the bomb was by Willy Ley—the news of Otto
Hahn’s splitting the uranium atom was out early. The bombers were
B-47s, and Pease is Pease AFB in New Hampshire.

I remember coming to a stop
Out of a dead run,
Face inches from a golden garden spider.

After first fright, first shock, able to admire
The order of her web,
The zig zag where she waited, holding the strands

Two legs by two in a black and yellow X.
Before I could read
I was shown spirogyra under a microscope,

Perfect green turning through a nave of crystal.
Also a black widow
In a mason jar, the scorpion in the back yard,

Mother’s marvels.   Father knew the stars
By name when night
Was still night, while I explored on my own.

One day in a park by a dam I wandered off
And found a house
Tall as a cathedral.  Nothing alive inside

I could see, no icons, no idols, the only
Presence dynamos
Humming their hymns.  That was power enough.

Corvus is dressed in business black,
He knows the price of everything.
You go with him and don’t come back.

The sky is split. And through the crack
A sable eye in a sable ring;
Corvus is dressed in business black.

The crow beside the road keeps track,
Then rises slowly, taking wing:
You go with him and don’t come back.

Under all wealth a world of lack;
Some birds count and some birds sing.
Corvus is dressed in business black,

Thinking of you as meat on a rack
While the butcher is busy sharpening.
You go with him and you come back

All bundled up in a paper sack,
All stuck up with a price to ching.
Corvus is dressed in business black,
You go with him and don’t come back.

We cratered a comet this morning.
Now as I take out the trash

I watch the fireworks in the city park
Filtered through trees,

Far enough to be magic rather than noise,
Red white and blue regurgitated in flame.

Finally the big show is over.
Somewhere a car alarm goes off

And behind the house at the corner
Roman candles fart and fizzle light

While in the warm dark of my yard
A lightning bug dives for cover.