Читать книгу Purity of Absence - Dave Margoshes - Страница 10

Strikes Often

Men are struck by lightning five times as often as women.

—Newspaper Item

Taller, of course,

more foolhardy, more’s

the fool, and more likely

to have forgotten an umbrella,

to be out walking and fail to notice

rain assailing our unprotected lives

the way your love can if we

let it, but that alone can’t explain

why our lives are in jeopardy,

why we take the chances no one

would reasonably assume we

should, not in this life

with all its teeth and broken glass.

Montreal haunts us the way livers

do drunks. Sick and complaining,

they insist we somehow are at fault,

we who take all the chances,

who put ourselves ahead

of whatever comes, that we brought

it on ourselves, and maybe we did.

Say something often enough

and even the liar starts to believe

it, let alone the altar boys,

lip-syncing the litany, big boys don’t cry, rats’ tails and snails, that’s what boys are made of.

When it does strike, lightning,

it doesn’t do it twice but over

and over again till we’ve got

the drill in our sleep, dreams

blossoming up like fish surfacing

with bubbles for kisses, till

the choices dry up, even the few

we started with. The house

is in darkness, the children

asleep, your breath steady as tide

on the pillow, the owl silent

in its tree. We lie awake,

listening for thunder.