Jacket # 4 - M.T.Cronin

"As foam clings to the stones you lose the sense
of the ruin's impassive flow.
Death does not know as it dies the closed
song of the owl, casts round
in its hunt for love, continues
an open arch, revealing
its solitude. Someone will come."

from An Open Arch, Salvatore Quasimodo

On the water,
perfect white pencils of light;
crouched in the belly of the evening
a little girl who remembers your face
under an umbrella as rain falls
with the grace of background music
into your ear,
the old mother and father
who wept and held each other that night . . .

called to their tears, still sticky
with the dreams of you -
those raw breaking dreams
that you only have of your children

and you, who had to be persuaded
to pick up your gun,
playing hide and seek with the bodies
of other women's grown sons,
lying in the sweat and blood
of those who lost hope
before you
hoping someone will come . . .

(you whisper, a dog,
when it is only a shadow moving across
the water)

and I, can take you on my lips: It is only the flesh
that is deteriorating,
not your last words sitting in the garden
with us all: Oh, the superstition
of sport and the ordinariness
of war; not following the same pain

to the winning

the law of broccoli

is like the law of yellow flowers
going to seed
you can eat it raw
or put it in a jar
like a bunch
it is so chaste
yet lush
it gets me all bothered
the flowers are like
beautiful little narcotics
and I count them
all afternoon
the broccoli is so green
that it leads me
to the end of analogy
where everything is sleepy and still
and quite
unconvincing

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