First Day of Open Windows

 

 

I can barely focus on "Song of Myself"

for the rattle of semis down Route 23

out past the K Mart accelerating gloriously

 

in exactly the American tune Whitman

would have wanted, full of stink

and clank, two men on a loading dock

 

sharing a cigarette and talking shit

between deliveries, the truck driver

with his elbow out the window

 

singing along to the country station,

and a lone cardinal in our hedge

narrating the story as he understands it,

 

a tale more about wind currents

and the flash of a cat tail around

the corner of the garage than about

 

any load of charcoal briquettes

making its way between greening fields

and towns waking warily from winter.

 

 

© David Graham

 

 

In Distrust Of Spring

 

 

Wind licks open parkas and ruffles

matted oak leaves dissolving on the lawn,

our first tulips poking through.

 

Sorry.  Can't endorse such floral urgency.

I'm with the sleet lingering in shady spots,

winter still chapping my bleached hands.

 

Some April foolery pits me against students

in their vivid shorts, their amazed knees

indicting me.  But I'm already convicted.

 

I'm the wish  of a car down the swept street.

The cut and clamor of February wind.

I'm the hard nub of ice in an oak's roots.

 

Yet if I could perch in the skittish topbranches

like a cardinal, whistling sheer crimson

effrontery, if I could just simmer there,

 

then dart on—if, that is, I could fly

beyond myself in one disobedient swoop,

then I would not cling to winter's clarity,

 

or if I did, it might reside within me

at the merest tease of wind, the spark

of sun stabbing from the icicle tip. 

 

 

© David Graham

 

 

Live Band

 

 

It's some no-name quartet

from Milwaukee, I think,

grinding out three chord rock

 

for Spring Fest, the stage bathed

in blue, the night so cold

even the drunks still wear

 

their jackets dancing.  I

see one student lurching

from the cemetery

 

zipping his fly, and he

could be me thirty years

ago, wild with the pulse

 

but my only dancing

a bruised hip when I knock

against a cold tombstone.

 

The music hasn't changed,

backbeat heavy as blood,

harmonies half shout, half

 

plea, and as usual

the bass in charge of all.

I love her, and she don't

 

love me, but the bass man

looks at the lead singer

as a mother will gaze

 

at her baby crying.

Poor baby doesn't know

who loves, who loves him so.

 

 

© David Graham

 

 

Springtime for Suckers

 

 

Once again we lean into the suckerpunch

of March—a few delicious afternoons,

daffodils poking into south sun,

shopping for sandals and swim trunks.

 

Then wham! we're shoveling sky

from the long driveway again, worrying

ice dams and sandbags for traction,

rooting in closets for our lined boots.

 

Each year we surrender anew to hope,

which means ice scrapers chipped like fingernails.

Which means windows ticking sleet's monotone.

And only the cemetery crows, clacketing

 

their morning-after gossip in hardened oaks,

remain entirely unsurprised by the cold.

 

 

© David Graham

 

 

Valentines in the Waste Basket

 

 

Even in April it's sad

to find such hopeful hearts

crinkled, jammed deep

amid the empty envelopes

and grocery fliers.

To Tad from Rose XOXO.

Love, Mother. 

From your not so secret admirer. . . .

To the Very best Dad ever,

from Andi & Kevin.  But

you can't keep everything.

In fact, you'll be lucky

to hold on to a few measly

trinkets, Tad knows,

having just this year

filled a dozen garbage bags

with his father's shoes

and toothbrushes, and sent

his six suits to the thrift store.

Shredding thirty-five years

of tax forms and receipts,

bank and pension statements

took two full days, with

time out for discarding

a shoebox full of dry pens,

one shaving kit, basket

brimming with ancient

Christmas cards, a dozen

shirts too threadbare

for recycling.  Heave it all

out, heave it far and wide

before you can't.  What's

truly sad isn't the bare

hospital room, rubber sheets

and wheezing oxygen pump--

what's sad are the bookmarks

marooned on page 213,

a scratched plastic

drinking cup, socks

he would have tossed

a year ago had he been able.

 

 

© David Graham