Anatomy of Time

Time is the slow pavane of stars and constellations,
Travel of light across galactic silence
Toward regions of no light at all, no space, no gravity.

Time is the lighthouse flash come round across the bay,
Only to swoop away and leave us in night once more.

Time is your lover starting up your stairs.

Time is the pad of nurses’ feet down bright waxed corridors
Through smells of medicine and ether.

Time is the tick of school clock
On the first warm April afternoon,
Bright cries from somewhere through open windows;
The teacher’s smile as she coaxes once again
The names of the first five Presidents.

Time is the dentist humming in the other room,
Sirens in the nightmare city.

Time is the million lifetimes, births and copulations, deaths,
Between the scream of midnight telephone
And the first few words of bad, bad news.

Haiku Afternoon

Gray cat by your side
In languid, blinking comfort.
You stroke him idly.

This day of dappling,
Sun laced across the carpet;
Six weeks to autumn.

Resting, perfect light;
Long deep breath, you touch your throat,
Pale above your blouse.

The curve of your breast
Just where the buttons open:
Promise. Memory.

That Day

I was snot-nosed, wide-eyed, skinny,
The world unreeling past my beam of light:
Saturday matinee for me alone.
Sunny day. Dick Randall home from the war,
Neighbors calling from their porches,
Dick laughing, shaking hands.
Mr. Johnson, fat, in his bright white shirt,
Smiled at me from the curb. He was always nice,
But next year he’d hang himself, in the basement
Where his kids and I played soldiers.

Then Katie Ryan smiled too,
Big freckled smile that said she liked me,
So I fell in love with her forever,
And we’d get married and I’d kiss her,
We’d smoke cigarettes and look at sunsets,
We’d have a world of jelly sandwiches
And chocolate milk and popcorn. Oh, good movie,
Katie with me; I could hear the music.
That day. Dick Randall back, everyone happy,
Mr. Johnson smiling at it all.

Arno Flow

Florence. Late afternoon light.
The Arno fades from brown to green,
Darkens back to brown: Da Vinci colors.
Lightning on hills where the Etruscans camped,
Then Romans in their numbered days.
Leonardo lived half a mile from here,
Saw hills and river and this ancient bridge
Where tourists shop for souvenirs today.
Swallows circle and swerve their tracery;
Glory in the western sky.

Across the water on her balcony
An artist paints, gazing out
At blues and golds and Tuscan greens
Of day and river moving into night.
She adds a careful touch. Bird? Shadow?
Or maybe deepens the wash of sun on stone.
Perhaps she’ll put me in that painting,
Tiny mark across the river, figure in a fresco,
Lost among others here or those who stood here once
To watch the Arno flowing west like time.