Unfinished
by John Baglow
I. BREAK
you will not heal
in your metal works,
a tin box
fashioned so
and the things
you brought
weigh
like too many beads
these years,
lapsing
and relapsing,
a possession
a demon
at rusty controls
steering
over broken stones
cursing,
afflicted,
beset.
i love you.
II. BACKGAMMON
snow wraps
the world tight this evening,
too tight to breathe
after weeks
of watching him drift
like a ghost ship
losing way in the time and weather,
st. elmo’s fire in his head.
just out of reach
like a memory,
his hand trembles
from cut nerves
and his mask is a face
that speaks air.
he throws the dice,
and we begin.
III. DANNY
if there is a future,
the gods likely know it:
what else is there to think about,
or do?
out of their rheumy eyes
they watched my sweet kid fall to earth,
and said nothing.
what, after all, is there to say?
language is for those
so sure of themselves
they must protest.
but those who know what’s coming
are the ones full of doubts:
they can change not a thing
and wonder what they might have done
unchained
IV. HE P URI
because it took four seconds for you
to hit the ground, more or less,
smashing yourself on the concrete face–down
and the greenstone pendant i gave you
and because that time
contains a whole life closed to me,
i am not a poet anymore.
i live in the dark now, casting no shadow.
memories are all my stars
flaming out as they fell,
chunks of half–molten iron and stone
shapeless, broken,
only what they were.
nothing can warm the heart
still beating, beating,
in its wine–dark sea.
under the autumn sky
a tree raises its bare branches
to catch the rain,
and these words hang in mid–air
V. MISSING
i don’t know where the flowers end up
let alone les neiges d’antan,
but there’s new snow on the ground
and a dog is bounding over a wet white hill.
the field below lies draped
over knives of rock
and the dog disappears like the day,
finding its home.
night is thick with cold,
windless, quiet as the moon.
the stars in their cages are pacing,
but free them, and they will fall.