At Six

Like a distant singing, like a finger sizzling

for just one moment on the iron, it almost

hurts. Almost. But then something pulls

away, and the smooth belly of evening

slides over the earth; the pines and the spaniels

stop howling and suddenly drop off to sleep.

While the air is numb with the drowsiness

of clouds, the needle sails free of the scars

on the record and the record player lifts

its artificial arm! This hurts.

But then a boy lays his cards on his bedspread

the way a sailor spreads his sails

on the sand, and even this reminds me

of tables being set, of a woman calling

and calling her children through blistered

hands. Then something lets go,

and in her left palm she sees her own eyes,

and in her right the evening’s first star

pulls her toward the distant

singing of the sky. Then something else

lets go; the long sheet of night

winds slowly through the pines.

Here and there the lights

go up, like a shy applauding.

41,493

poems

4,155

poets

207

poetic terms