A PITTSBURGH CHRISTMAS 

In two days there may be snow
dark over the black waters of the Allegheny
and Monongahela. All night it will fall,

starting in upper layers of precolonial green,
down through the levels of coal furnace soot
and sulfuric steam, then ending in a flickering

that confuses even those who are asleep
in their ancestors’ dreams. On waking they will not know
what age it is, or what fills the morning

air. Will it be candlelight commingling
from the boughs of Christmas trees?
Or the sweet breath of young lovers

kissing in the cold? One thing is certain:
There will never be clear days of nature’s
pure intent. They will be soiled with ours,

and the snow will fall this side white,
that side gray; leaving wide spaces amid flakes,
a view we piece together, a time

we break away.

first appeared in Paper Street

SAM 

He left me for the wilderness
of heaven, the one nuns looked up
in the Baltimore Catechism

then passed on to Vatican Two kids
still tidied up from the Fifties
but moving fast toward the edge of a precipice

where they too would fall. His image
came only from black-and-whites, all smile,
wavy dark hair and a hand-tinted face.

He and my mother became petrified
by that look, and all the Ozzie and Harriet
that went with it, as I stumbled along

in the uncertain light of the present.
But what if he’d had a different life?
One like his father’s, maybe:

a Sardinian shepherd born of stargazers
and women who hummed
when they did the wash. Or how about a soldier

drunk on the streets of postwar Paris,
half-heartedly waiting for his ship
to the charted waters of a new, unchecked

America? I like the one of him
leaning forward at a crowded café table,
chain smoking, hair wild and unwashed,

a four-day stubble on his chin
and bright epiphany in his black eyes.
Then there is the day he walked down the street,

nothing in particular holding his attention,
yet everyone noticing his elegant body
as it called up all the futures and pasts,

a definite flirt on his beautiful face
as it made strangers fall in love with him,
yes, even if that meant

I would never be born.

first appeared in Palimpsest

 
LINES

Sunfish suspend themselves
above cloudy water, making their lives
more or less visible.

My son and I
fish their pond for bigger things,
the grist of dreams: our lines
in and out of the water; swallowtails
making zigzags of summer air
above us.  And all around the quiet thunder

of blooming laurel.  He catches
the biggest fish of the day, but remains
intently calm, reeling in a mystery
that shows up half his size.

We both watch the line—its guided,
wandering force.  A struggling fish
makes no sound under water, and we strike
at the right random moment.

Already, too much has been imprinted
on the backs of my son’s eyes.
Where is the ghost of that invisible line?
How do I tell him his best friend is dying?

first appeared in The Larcom Review