Poetry

 

 

Wendy Sloan

Crossing Union Square

Poor little cat in a cage! I know the type,
just like my cat at home. It's called pastel
calico, pinkish blush over that gray stripe.
Caged in, and yet he seems to be doing well.
As I watch, the girl gives him some more to eat.
He gobbles it up so fast. "This one is sweet,
sweet, sweet" she says. "Yes, like mine" I agree.
The sign on her collection box, I now see,
is a name I've never heard of. Then it hits:
what if this group is some elaborate scam?
Kids pick up a few stray alley cats and—wham!—
they're in business, Fagin-style. Well, what of it?
He's off the street. He's fed. I wish them luck,
and as I go I hand the girl a buck.

 

Rachel Warner
(1890-1938)
Warnerville Hill, New York

You there, picking the blackberries from the briars
that grow around my tombstone, stop awhile.
Count up the graves beside mine—see these three?
Gitty, Ezra, Emmet—stricken that same year.
Nineteen-eighteen it was. The sickness hit
them all so fast, the young ones lay too weak
to cry, till one by one the good Lord took them
all away from me.

                                                   Winter was long
that year; the drifting snow covered the doors
in piles against the house to the second story.
So when the thaw came on, I thought the worst
had passed us by. But in that I was wrong. Oh, we
had wood enough, and the house was warm, but then
there wasn't much left to feed them—old potatoes
mostly—wrinkled, sprouting in the cellar.

I stayed up with them nights, I laid the cold
compress on their foreheads, rubbed them down
when fever flared, and when it broke I changed
the sweat-soaked sheets, remade their beds, told them
their favorite stories to help them sleep, until
their long sleep came.

And Father brought them up here to this hill.
Then I knew I could not go on. But the working did&—
the cooking, washing, hauling in the wood
had to be done—and so go on I did.
And many a year went by before the Lord
released me, too, at last, and I wake to work no more.

Three small ones close beside me, Stranger, yes,
I had more children born in later years
and they grew up strong, and they went on in life
to tend to farms and families of their own.

These three stayed here. And, Stranger, now you see:
I kept the ones who'd left me so alone.
I have them with me for eternity.

 

We Wait for Film Results

Someone will get bad news today. Each eye
turns, anxious, towards the doorway, where a nurse
calls out a name. The room emits a sigh.
A single woman starts, heaves up her purse
and flees into a maze of nightmare worse
than all of our accumulated fear.
So even modern science casts a curse
through these tense rituals. They interfere
with daily life enough to wrench a tear
too small, at first, to render insincere
relief's acceptance for another year.
And ransomed by the destiny we share—
macabre camaraderie in tow—
the rest of us put on our clothes, and go.

 

Sunday Morning at the Caffe Mediterraneum
          (Berkeley, 1972)

Pass the students, panhandlers, the waiting
dogs, plastic-clad bubble-blowing girl
hawking poems. Have a drink, contemplating
the scene, and the state of the world.

How for no cause the war goes on burning
the best we could be, while the sad
simple fact for the rest is discerning:
Growing up just means knowing you've been had.

Climb the stairs to your right. Head straight back for
the restroom, but be sure to allow
a moment to read what's been written
inside on the ladies' room door:

"I wish I could be what I was when
I wanted to be what I am now."

 

 

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