Читать книгу Local News from Someplace Else - Marjorie Maddox - Страница 7

Summer is going quickly. We are

very busy. My brother and his family all

died in a plane crash. Hope to see

you soon when we fly that way . . .

What we scrunch on a 3 x 5

wants happiness as bland

as the heat waving at us

from beneath its sunglasses and umbrella,

simplicity so boring we relax in it,

order another drink.

But somewhere between

the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building,

between your miss you’s and wish you were here’s,

fact slips in, inked lightning across skies

as bright as a Las Vegas smile.

In a postcard of Sunset Strip

amidst a list of Hollywood celebrities:

“The plane was the same

as JFK, jr.’s.” And on the backside

of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:

“The memorial service was short.”

All summer I listen

for clouds cracking open with you,

your brief alphabet of grief swooping in

from the skies with the late-morning mail.

There is room here to land

in the ordinary,

a clearing for what is missing.

I’m waiting to hear from Madrid,

from Tokyo and Madagascar,

where loss, I’ve read, flies fastest

in the smallest of words.