1943

Moon helmets and webbed belts,

Voices in the basement.

Black shutters close over our windows.

In the picture book

A collie dog is helping a soldier.

My cousins in fat white boots

Twirling batons up the street, behind them

A brass clamour of trombones and cornets.

Names on a white stone

Women in black coats stand

Hands hanging from their sleeves.

The auditorium. Flag and a cross. Jesus arching

Like an alley cat. Loud song.

God Bless America. Dark giant of voices.

I too am singing.

I break all my crayolas, sullen, won’t

Be sorry. Fat white moon

Of Sister’s face shining into mine. So:

Those hollow shadows are eyebrows!

Black, arched as heaven, as suffering Jesus,

As planes heavy with bombs

As the slant eyes

Of evil yellow pilots, the demented cross

Of a swastika. I like

Smilin’ Jack and Daddy Warbucks.

The black cocker spaniel I might get

Next year when I am five

Like the one on my mother’s playing cards

Queen of Hearts, King of Diamonds. Not the Jack

With shifty eyes, grownup voices lowering

Then forgetting, saying Kamikazi, death

Mother crying into the telephone,

Aunt heaving up the stairs, her breath

Black wheezes. Someone hands me

A rosary. Round black beads.

Gold cross hanging.

Patsy Boy

White sailor suit wrinkling the sunlight

How he would throw me

Into the air, frock and hairbows flying

Poetry