THAT YEAR IN BLACK AND WHITE


(Merrill Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1997)


A man is found hung on the edge of the ghetto,
his eyes bleeding from the pressure,

the cold moss like water
where the stones have been rolled away
& replaced over the man’s keys
& empty wallet.

A couple of bank receipts blow in a circle under his shoes.
Police lights warble, red & blue.

*

Abort Christ, it says on the toilet stall
door in the Catholic hospital,
& somebody drew
a fetus hung by its own umbilical cord.

The urinals epoxied to the wall
look like something from Easter Island.
They stare silently into the long mirrors,
bored stupid by years.

*

The snow flakes here are made of dust and metal.

They taste like nothing, like a pile of new envelopes.

A squadron of planes purrs invisibly over the house and then when it’s quiet
you see a single mosquito casting a shadow on the kitchen wall.

Is it really 3 a.m.?

Yes, but it hasn’t snowed for five months.

When you turn on the television a burning crucifix fills the screen
And for twenty minutes it just stays there.