Thursday Also Happens

John Ciardi

Yesterday when the leaves blew off the elm
 I looked out the window of the third-floor landing
 eye to eye with the squirrel that used to be there-
 and saw a silk hat hung on the upper trunk.

"There's a top hat in the elm," I told my wife.
"Why?" she said. "This isn't Thursday, is it?"
"As a matter of fact, it is," I told her. "Drat!"
she said. "I've known all day I was late for something!"

"Take the car," I said. It wasn't Thursday.
I wanted her out of the way while I climbed the ladder,
 as I knew I must. She would have screamed, "You'll fall!"
And I would have fallen. I am subject to suggestion.

But once she was gone, I could make it. I said to myself,
"Of course you can make it." And having said so, I did.
I had guessed the topper was hung on a twig. It wasn't:
it was fixed to the trunk by a shingle-nail through the brim.

I had no hammer and had to rip it off
leaving a silken ink-stain on the bark
with a nail-head in it. The hat was buff-new.
The leather band was stamped in gold: "A.T."

Arturo Toscanini? The silk of the crown
bore an embroidered label: "Strega-Milano."
It confirmed my guess. When I reached in, a dove
unfurled in my hand. Thank God it wasn't a rabbit:

Icouldn't have carried it down and the fall would have made
a military splash in my pachysandra.
I didn't reach in again. I let the dove go.
The thing kept coming back with olive branches.

"Stop it!" J said. "It wasn't that wet a summer.
 I don't much like green olives. And why make a Bible
 of what began as simple curiosity?"
 There was also the fact that heights make me dizzy:

 I had to get down. And since J needed both hands
 for my death grip on the ladder, I put the hat on.
 I should have known better. My wife came into my head.
 I saw in greater detail than was necessary

 what she had been late for. So now, Arvin Tremblow!
 -Imagine thinking it might have been Toscanini!-
"Td best get down," I said. And found myself down.
 I knew then. "This is bigger than we are," the dove said.

 When I went indoors after pointing the cat at the dove,
 the phone was ringing. "It's bigger than we are," it said.
"I know," I told her. "Will you need the car?"
 - "Only to fetch my things." -"T'll have them ready."

"Thank you for understanding," she said. I shrugged.
"Tt happens," I said. "The leaves blow off and one sees.
 Drive carefully. This rush hour traffic kills."
 Later I thanked the sergeant who phoned to tell me.

 Then I phoned Fay Morticians and made the arrangements.
 Then I sat down with a fresh bottle of bourbon
 and thought of Natalie Krink. I said aloud,
"Am I only thinking through my hat?" -"Not really,"

 she said, coming in like spring, "but take it off."
 So I took it off, and it was my wife again.
"You finished the whole bottle!" she said. I nodded.
 A man must do what he can when his love leaves him.