Poems
by John
Grey
What The Dog Knows
Alligators sun themselves
in suburban waters
while, in a backyard that slopes down
to a creek,
a boy cuts a birthday cake
into awkward slices,
soon joined by others his age
emerging from a bounce house,
as parents either blow up balloons
or retrieve scattered gift wrapping.
Close by, a copperhead
slithers across the lawn,
concealed by shadow.
Mosquitos move on from dead pools
in search of human flesh.
Maybe the two older kids
tossing a frisbee.
Or the old man who sits
in a chair away from the others,
the family patriarch that everyone ignores.
Only a small dog
moves between the two worlds,
but his happy yap
and fearful yap
sound much the same
to anyone who listens.
“There’s stuff out there
and it’s dangerous,” he says.
“Family is kind and warm
and good for the soul,” he also says.
And then there’s a third yap.
“There isn’t a damn thing
keeping them apart.”
The Thief
Midtown,
high noon,
crowded sidewalk,
guy grabs a woman’s purse
and starts running,
yet nobody pursues,
for the woman’s in shock
and everyone else
is in a different hurry,
and only the thief
knows what he needs to do,
which is snatch and hightail it,
for a couple of bucks,
some coins,
and a maxed-out credit card,
but it’s worth it to the guy –
for a moment there,
he’s the only one who knows
Trunk And Spider
The trunk is still and solemn as a coffin.
but a cobweb veils the attic window.
Wind blows through the cracks,
blows the threads around
but can't undo what the spider has weaved.
The trunk is mostly forgotten
by those living on the floors below.
But, in the creep of light across dusty air,
the spider centers his masterwork.
A Strange Death
I’m here with my wife, her stepmother,
stepsisters, burying her father.
The air is dank as it always is for funerals.
Drizzle drips down faces.
Kids fidget. The end of one life
can barely corral the ones just beginning.
Most of us stare blankly.
I’m doing my best to conjoin my feelings
with those of my wife,
but the result is only moderately successful.
I’ve learned the man backwards through his daughter,
every reaction tempered by tales
of the two of them, single dad and teenager,
scraping by after her mother died.
That’s still not enough for insight,
to regret his passing, to gauge the emptiness
now he’s no longer in the world.
My wife grips my hand, presses it tight.
Once she held his hand, squeezed it hard.
That grip remains unknown to me.
Kooks
There is a woman swimming in the dry river
and a man at the hardware store
looking for the toy department.
An old lady is actually, like the old song,
singing in the rain.
And two guys are walking up and down the street
carrying a door.
A boy is dressed as Santa Claus in summer.
A little girl wears a sign around her neck
that reads, “Beware the antichrist.”
None of these are the real kooks.
We’ll meet them later.
