An American Morning

Over coffee we study the morning's

form and structure but it flows

away through our fingers like

so many dreams, so many

mornings turned shapeless,

funneled by way of noon

into afternoon and finally

lost in evening's underbrush.

No hourglass prevents this,

no effort of will keeps the day

in shape. It is the river without

banks we're asked to navigate,

the endless cave we're told to

explore.

We long for London mornings:

milk on the doorstep, papers by

seven, mail by eight-fifteen,

the reassurance of egg and egg cup,

the foggy assertions of tea-

that thread of order leading to lunch

by which time the day is firmly

in hand, not dwindling like this

one, not cringing across the open

fields of the hours. There we managed

most evenings and felt we owned

the nights.

Here, the nights get out

of hand, to say nothing of the evenings.

Here we move through the day

taking cover, dodging from shadow

to shadow, and feel lucky if we reach

the five o'clock bunker. Even then

VERN RUTSALA

it's all logistics and planning,

all maps and strategies for the next

day's effort. We're never sure

what tack to take and our

dreams don't help a bit, filled with

travel and war and sirens keening wordless

dirges toward another shapeless morning.

COMING HOME

We thought we knew these

sidewalk cracks by heart

but even they have altered

in our absence, branching out

on their own. The yard too

has a new identity-some

plants dead, others new.

Inside, the knives and forks

don't seem the same and feel

wrong in our hands. The design

is more extreme than we

remember and there has been

some subtle change in scale

too. The touch of familiar

things is strange, surfaces

feel foreign as if we had

brought back some art

of foreignness. Even the old

companions-tables and chairs,

the light through a window-

seem alien. We are back

but not back all the way.

Something odd has lodged

in our senses, some foreign