Poetry | Page 16 | wisconsinacademy.org
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Poetry

For his sixty-sixth birthdaythe nurse brought my father spice cakeI don’t know whether he couldeat it himself or she fed him aspart of her duties.He said, “That’s about asspecial as it gets in here”

Coming back always went fast.We fell asleep on the rear seatin happy tangle and were homebefore we wished it.My father carried usto our beds, my youngerbrothers limp and soft,easily moved.

Draw a line to five, when Frank Bitsueis hauling water from the well then counthis living grandchildren and divide themby the ones who chased sheep into the rain.Subract the crash. Add summers and sleep of

I guess you didn't get my letter, since youdied before I put it in the mail.But maybe that's OK—I mean, whatwas left to say anyway? Confession (I neverenjoyed hunting, or peeing in public)?

In cold darkness    calling from tree to treeLaughing at    our foolish dreamsCrooning love    in a long lost keyFeathers at once    oil slick and tricksterSwitchblade beaks

How morning can be transalpine

How the vestiges of summer are falling

How the window can be empty and still

How the curtain isn't moving

How the bed curtails movement 

 

How fear can be found

Born in an Illinois barn,

that two-headed calf

 

became a coin Frank flipped

through World War Two,

 

judging heaven from 

a foxhole. “God loves evil…

 

Not looking up at 

those lugubrious geese who

knows if they looked

 

Perhaps someone saw

their underglow there riding

in sight of twilight

 

This kind of light holds

By

 

They come out of the 1940's

to be your parents. Their faces

swim and settle into clarity.

The crook of an arm. The fount

of a breast. They come from

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