The Greeters

A poem

You’d think everybody’s eyes would be fixed up here,

so far above the cataracts. But these two kids look

just like they used to, and nobody calls them four eyes—

they’re the cool ones who left the party early, before

you could corner one of them and say hey,

how does it feel to be struck by the hand of God?

At this point you could ask the big guy himself,

although he probably wouldn’t hear you over the screech

of the lightning needle on his cumulonimbus turntable.

In any event, you could use a boost as you scramble

toward this soundless brightness, inertia suspended. These two

snag your clammy hands and steady you. By now they’ve learned

to glide. Haloes round their eyes, adjusted to prescription.

This week I’ll be posting poems I’ve had lying around (this one for five years, for example), because 1) I want to give them a place somewhere, and 2) I need to refuel before resuming my regimen of rather long posts. It was easy not to realize how much I was writing. Hope you enjoy these scraps of the past as much as I enjoy unearthing them.