In the story the oven is never full of children
but the threat is real, the house lights blank out,
the storm hasn't come. There is a fox with the knowledge
of everything trying to arrive in time, a sparrow and the sparrow
she can’t kill. No one knows what to make of the new world
so they call it old. The story is long and told to keep children
from wandering. You know it. My cousin has never seen a fox
but has one tattooed over his heart, stupid organ. This is what
the best generals knew: you can’t bury a bone without burying
the body, can’t leap from a cliff without becoming pure air.
It’s old and hollow but I would like to say something to you.
I saw a group of children once and didn’t think the world new
or old or terrible. It was Tuesday and everyone was talking
about the future. They said the eagles had it. That it was for the hungry
mouths. There was a desert we were walking to
and didn’t even know it. There was a kingdom
in which we’d some day beg. My grandfather
was no angel. I’ll admit I once caught him kissing a picture
of a woman he didn’t know. After he left, I looked for her
in the corners of things. Not even the absence of the absence
of angel. The smart money is on the weather not the horse, he'd say.
Sometimes I smile when I mean something else entirely.
The dock fills with boats and I can hardly explain this luck.