FLASHLIGHTS
The winter dusk creeps up the Avenue
With biting cold.
Behind bright window panes
In gauzy garments
Waxen ladies smile
As shirt-sleeved men
Hustle them off their pedestals for the night.
Along the Avenue
A girl comes hurrying,
Holding her shawl.
She stops to look in at the window.
“Oh Gee!” she says, “look at the chiffon muff!”
A whimpering dog
Falters up to cringe against her skirt.
A man in his shirt sleeves lolls against a tree,
His feet stick out,
His hands lie on the grass, palms up.
He stares ahead.
Now and again he turns himself
As from the enshrouding darkness forms emerge
Dragging their feet, arms interlocked,
Wan faces raised to the flare of light.
Sometimes these kiss,
Scream in brief laughter, or throw their bodies
Prone on the welcoming earth.
The man watches them, then turns his head,
Gets himself upon his feet
And walks away.
Candles toppling sideways in tomato cans
Sputter and sizzle at head and foot.
The gaudy patterns of a patch-work quilt
Lie smooth and straight
Save where upswelling over a silent shape.
A man in high boots stirs something on a rusty stove
Round and round and round,
As a new cry like a bleating lamb’s
Pierces his brain.
After a time the man busies himself
With hammer and nails and rough-hewn lumber
But fears to strike a blow.
Outside the moonlight sleeps white upon the plain
And the bark of a coyote shrills across the night.
A woman rocking, rocking, rocking,
A small hand waving, nestling:
Outside, lights blurred to starriness
And summer rain.
Little waves slap softly and monotonously
Against the pier:
A triangle of geese honk by;
On the darkening sand
Fresh lines traced with a stick—
“I am sorry, Forgive,”
And a little oblong mound with a cross of twigs.
Near by a girl’s hat and dainty scarf.
A smell of musk
Comes to him pungently through the darkness.
On the screen
Scenes from foreign lands
Released by the censor
Shimmer in cool black and white
Historic information.
He shifts his seat sideways, sideways—
A seeking hand creeps to another hand,
And a leaping flame
Illuminates the historic information.
Within the room, sounds of weeping
Low and hushed:
Without, a man, beautiful with the beauty
Of young strength,
Holds pitifully to the handle of the door.
He hiccoughs and turns away
While a hand organ plays
“The hours I spend with thee, dear heart.”
A pink feather atop of a greying white straw hat,
A peek-a-boo waist and skirt showing a line of stocking
Above white shoes,
Stand in front of a judge
Who leans over a desk of golden oak
And summons forward a sulky, slouching boy.
“You are required by this Court,” says the judge,
“To pay over to this woman
One-third of your weekly wage
For the support of your innocent child.”
And the clerk of the court calls out
“Next on the docket?”