What Catches Up With You Also Passes
(Aug. 2006)
Rte. 4 dream
A large, screaming woman shoves open her car door, bursts
out, coming on like an onrushing boar.
She reaches me, at her side a pin-stripe-suited man
holding a briefcase.
He opens it, extracts a neck brace, and hands it to the woman,
who keeps screaming even as she straps it on.
The sky rains paper.
Among the things I should have noticed at the time
They appear with their machines every Thursday to mow the lawn.
When they are done I give them ice-cold cans of lemon-lime soda,
for which they are grateful.
In the fall, they bring leaf blowers, a noisy plague upon cool, dry days.
I give them soda.
Each operation, cutting or blowing, takes ten minutes.
There were times, O-husband-wherever-you-are, when you and our boys
reluctant to join them in their play, covering the ground so easily
between instruction and games, the two acts became one.
Funny, thinking about this for the first time, just now.
It
Yesterday, I forgot
why it is important that,
be here
in my yard, on my steps, in my
sleep.
Today, I remembered:
It is enough that it has
important.
Sometimes, though, the ringing gives way
And I hear voices singing,
steady.
You think I want the operation
solely so I can still read
computer solitaire,
easing long afternoons,
sleepless nights.
More than enough.
To lose sight now, dear, when hearing has gone
well, just imagine.
I awoke from a familiar dream
to a day that needed discerning.
The dream, really just animated memory,
more bright eyed even than in life,
some of them.
When I caught your eye you had already
been smiling, but you really turned it on
And then I woke, in the same room, sat up
Was their shoes more than anything.
a child calling, your laughter.
surprised by empty rooms.
except, of course, for the stumbling.
if there is one.
To comment on these poems, click here.
here.
Robert Bové contributes regularly to The Iconoclast, our Community Blog. Click here to see all his contributions, on which comments are welcome.