They are watching me die. Six years old
and I’m dying. “Dip-theria,” they call it, and my
throat
won’t open, and the doctor with a look at my mother
shaking his head, then the long needle stabbing
my back, my dog Buster whining, Peggy
holding her doll and crying. Shadows lengthen
and reach up the wall. They jump. They are watching
me die.
Now in the strange room of my head my shadow
escapes and floats away, leaving our street
and the vinegar factory, on past the Santa Fe tracks
and fluttery lights, over the diminishing river.
How sad that Buster on his little rug will sleep
alone, that Peggy’s doll will stare button eyes
all night at my pillow, my empty bed.
If only my father could hold me forever, and the world
stay still — my little blue shirt, my elkhide shoes
waiting for Buster and me to explore Alaska
and all those ranges …. I see our clean walls, and
the sparrow
I killed with my slingshot (how it held out its wings
and fell
trembling into the dust). I will live. The doctor’s
black bag will save me. His long needle will stab
again into my back and Buster will howl.
My father’s eyes – I see them yearn me toward him
and carry me drifting and weak to my bed in the
room.
Years later my son will die and that look
will return. Something will break in the sky that was
welded
and forged back home by a thousand pledges of truth.
Third Street, I hold you here, and my throat will open.
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