Poetry

Who has not thought of Johann Sebastian Bach—and please pronounce
That good man’s good name in German, whether you can or not—seated
At the keyboard of who cares what delubrum in the splendor of his isolation
Within the church of sound? The...

Then they were seized,
the four bodies,
the burning staves.

Between Wytheville, Virginia
and the North Carolina line,
he meets a wagon headed
where he’s been, seated beside
her parents a dark-eyed girl

As such things go, my reign of terror
felt impressive.

mary is an old woman without shoes.
she doesn’t believe it.
not when her belly starts to bubble

The servants strike. Repelled 
by dust and rotting garbage 
they shovel each other 

Red-faced and sweating in autumn
heat, Grandpa and his khaki friend
from town unloaded picks and hammers
off the truck, and took out a case
with dials that seemed a radio
or recording machine with spiral
cord and microphone and needles.

I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery,
I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.

I didn’t make present
those days he didn’t complain
but I knew he was sick, felt
sick, and a look would pass between us,
a doomed look that nonetheless