Sandy McKinney

Elegy Summer To hear him laugh I spun the hours like a carousel of smiling beasts whose racecourse was a ring of pleasure with me at the center, calling in the elephants by name at night, the swans, the champing rampant ponies to hold them safe against the next magical reappearance of the light. Autumn The first day was silence. Late September: the leaves, half-turned, took stiffened attitudes like little hands about to be let go. Later they fluttered to earth, the mother tree indifferent, as though she knew they¹d be replaced. I had no such hope. I watched them fall through the silence. The Third Year The body goes on wanting things faith can¹t provide. Sometimes a white pigeon feather spattered with rain, a random abstract crack along a wall reminds me of his body¹s grace and I turn imagining I¹ve heard calliope notes but the animals won¹t come back, though I call their names.

Copyright © 2000 Sandy McKinney All Rights Reserved