Poetry

Spring 2008

 

 

D. Nurkse

The Living Will

I rode the subway to Saint Luke's,
where my mother lay in coma.

When we passed aboveground,
I saw children playing ball
on a little diamond
in a haze of dust —

a cheerleader whirled upside down,
a bald coach placed a zero
in a grooved slot.

A home run soared into twilight
and the children froze,
but one walked away in tears.

He was talking to himself.
I tried to read his lips.

Then we entered Flatbush:
padlocked furniture stores;
in one window, a fringed lamp blazed,
in the next, an immense sofa
like a god's knees — signs
read Sale! Sale! but on the streets
there was no one.

At the border of Bensonhurst,
a nun dragged a balky collie
on a retractable leash.

An old man in rubber sandals
lugged a sign — Repent — and argued
with the air beside him.

At last a gap-toothed girl
waved to me from a marble stoop

and I was no longer a witness,
no longer a passerby.
I groped in my pockets
for the wadded form
with the strange stiff language
that meant no life support.

 

 

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