John Grey
In What Was Once Your Town
Beast-face of a moon,
lights in windows
of house after house,
but none of them are welcoming you.
Wind whistles through the malformed trees.
Red-stained leaves break away,
depart for death.
You sit on a bench
in the shadow of a statue.
There’s just the two of you out tonight
and he’s been dead since the war.
Main Street takes on an unfamiliarity.
The schoolhouse looms
like a crouching monster on the hill.
The library is a mausoleum.
The bandstand squeaks with rat music.
You curl up to sleep
on your hard, wooden bed,
doze as an inevitability
not a comfort.
This is no longer the town
where you were raised.
It’s just the one
that drops you somewhere.
Hanging By the River
The dance is done. It’s Saturday night.
A cop car cranks up his siren.
An arguing couple choose from among
the many ways they can make up.
The natives do what we always do,
hang out on the street for a while
and then gather at the river.
It’s the usual crew with a few new bright spots
here and there. Duke puffs away like a rubber
factory chimney. Andy takes off his shirt.
There’s the war vet with legs lost below the knee,
who wheels himself into our midst.
He’s famous for his smile and his lost limb jokes.
And here comes Jock, distributing his bulk
from one side to the other as he walks,
refuses to hide any excess pounds of himself.
Someone has pot. Another complains about
the price of gas. There’s always booze.
Andy’s all for a swim. His naked belly
is as round and as blotchy as the moon.
We’re too young to be worried about taxes
and leaking ceilings. A pretty stranger
is hanging back with some girls I do know.
I quickly find a place for her in my eye.
She bends down to touch the passing waters.
I’m desperately in love. No, make that vaguely.
Her shape is better articulation than anything
I’m capable of saying at that age.
Last weekend, we all got drunk and stumbled home.
Tonight, the news could be so much better.
She only has to look my way and I lift a little.
Of course, I’m not the only one who notices.
Duke is a slave to his own ego.
He may be killing himself with Camels
but, for now, he’s the leader of the pack.
Duke is as much his title as his name.
Strangely, the new girl doesn’t even appear
to be flattered by his attention.
Her friends, on the other hand, salivate.
Andy’s heavy splash interrupts all conversation.
“Look out!” cries someone.
The river briefly overflows its banks.
Cop car’s siren’s growing louder.
Can’t be ignored. It’s Constable Holmes.
I go to school with his younger brother.
He moves us on. Duke stands his ground.
Cop and tough guy face each other down
like wild west gun-fighters.
Badge and gun carry the day.
The two separate and Duke sneers,
“Nothing much happening here, anyhow.”
Saturday night dies down as it always must.
I take whatever meaning out of it I can
before heading home. I smile at the new girl.
She smiles back. Maybe we’ll connect.
Maybe we won’t. Situations change,
day by day, week by week.
A bunch of guys and girls down by the river
with the hour approaching midnight –
it’d make a good photograph to look back on
in the years to come. A cop breaks it up
before someone can snap the picture.
I often wonder about the ones that don’t write
these things down. Does the one who
grew up to be a plumber feel the memory
in pipes? What about the nurse? Is what happened
back in the day just one more patient
in need of a cure? And the cop? Does he move himself
when he moves some guys on?
Meanwhile, I collect times like some do butterflies.
But they pin their catch behind glass.
I allow mine to flutter a little.
