Standing Alone at Flannery O'Connor's Grave on a Night in April, a Woman Hears a Voice

You there —stand back.

If the wind's right, I probably smell,

even after all these years.

Don't give me that simpering look.

You think I made my single bed

and every day sat down

to those mad voices in my head

so you could come around and gawk?

Go away. And take

that maudlin moonlight with you.

Those whippoorwills, too,

sing-sawing like blind men

on their way to the john.

These coins on my grave—

somebody figures how

I'm running out of money here?

Get them out of my sight.

And one more thing—

I'm not hankering to see you,

but if you do come back,

bring a sign for the foot of my grave:

“Spitting Permitted.”

Make sure you get the spelling right.

              (Originally appeared in New Letters)

Answering the Question

I'm walking the dog at dusk

and my cat ambles up—

younger, on a younger lawn,

trotting beside me

in the same way

he once lapped his milk,

deliberate, luxuriant.

He rubs against my leg

as if to ask if I remember him,

then slips into the dark,

knowing, I suspect,

what the dead have always known.

(Originally appeared in

Under an Arkansas Sky,

Tavern Books)

Remembering the Brownstone

I want the ring of its iron steps,

ten or eight of them, under my feet—

the banister not quite secure,

the city stuttering around me

like a homeless wind.

I want to hurry up those steps again,

through the double oak dark doors

tall and heavy as God,

want to enter the rooms greeting me like strangers—

aloof, always on the verge of leaving,

shrugging into their polite coats.

(Originally appeared in Coal Hill Review)

     A Day's Work

     In this not-yet sunny kitchen,

     I sit in a silence born of the world's patience:

     as when a cork is persuaded

     from a difficult bottle of wine

     while the guests, in anticipation,

     lay down their talk,

     or a trolling motor is extinguished

     and the fisherman casts his line.

     The sun hauls up

     its battalions of birds.

     Now the world begins—

     peonies in the garden,

     the dog to his dish,

     a burning car blocking traffic

     on I-435 in the eastbound lane—

     as I try to describe it

     for a woman in Wabunsit, Maine,

     or a man leaving Wal-Mart at 2 a.m.,

     hungry for coffee, fries, a canoe willing a lake to rise

     to meet it.

     (Originally appeared in Under an Arkansas Sky,     

     Tavern Books)

Vehicle

Nobody wants to be a ghost.

It's tiresome, being noticed

but never seen.

How else can one go back, though,

to the house that was sold or burned

or rotted away—

to rustle the blinds,

startle the cat,

walk barefoot out

for the morning paper?

(Originally appeared in The Kansas City  Star)