One Wants a Teller in a Time Like This
One Wants a Teller in a Time Like This
A fortune teller who can predict how to bear this business alone.
A clairvoyant trained in psychography with an old set of Tarot cards
spread out by her crystal ball.
One cannot put a coin in the machine
that spits out a prediction
knowing for sure what the future will bring.
It is certain if or why or how
One wants a Teller now.
Like Pythia, Don’t Count On It
or Nostradamus Concentrate and Ask Again
or Swedenborg, As I see it, yes
or Edgar Cayce, Very doubtful
or Jeane Dixon, Better not tell you now
or the Fox Sisters, (thump, thump) Outlook good.
Behold—
The Magic Eight Ball
Reply hazy. Try again later.
*Inspired by “One Wants a Teller in a Time Like This” by Gwendolyn Brooks
Before an Elegy with Crows
I.
They launch themselves from the crooked wires—
five crows, sometimes six—
in bursts of laughter,
black air punching the morning peace.
Then the banging:
chimney caps rattled like war drums,
garbage can lids struck by their tiny hands.
Your roof for their concert,
as if they know the end is near
and want to mark it with noise.
II.
Their racket pierces like the rain
on your trailer roof back in Washington—
a hard, ceaseless drumming
you once mistook for comfort.
But these are strange omens,
crows lit by the glow of a dumpster fire
three streets down,
wings glinting orange like they’ve flown through hell
and brought back its warmth.
III.
There is nothing left to let in.
You’ve closed the door, sealed the vents,
shut out the last of the light.
Still, they find cracks,
their cries slipping in sideways,
a final intrusion of the world
before it forgets your name.
IV.
The crows do not flee.
They settle like smoke.
An uncanny stillness,
a hovering that doesn’t blink?
And they wait—
until you cannot.
No silence rises after their song,
only the sky,
and the sound of fire eating air.
*Inspired by “The Deathwatch Beetle” by Linda Pastan.
Letters sent in envelopes with second chances,
Refusing the new while holding onto the old,
Remembering how it felt before their death.
Letters sent in envelopes with second chances,
Folded into prayers that I released into the wild.
Remembering how it felt before their death,
Each of their words vanishing across the page before my eyes.
Folded into prayers that I released into the wild.
Their declarations confessed on college-ruled loose leaf,
Each of their words vanishing across the page before my eyes.
Sealed in a grave that nobody visits.
Their declarations confessed on college-ruled loose leaf.
Refusing the new while holding onto the old,
Sealed in a grave that nobody visits,
There was an age when I was most like myself.
*A pantoum inspired by “Something About the Trees” by Linda Pastan.
No comments:
Post a Comment