Lauderdale

 

At dusk, the grandmother sits alone

in the light of the long pale pool and speaks

to the frog who is waiting

by the electric gate of the clubhouse.

 

It will be all right, she says, leaning out

from her chair. Her voice

 

is churning, and old, and wet

with advice. Her newly red hair

purples under the bug light. It will be

all right, she says, again, and again

 

the sky rolls in and out on its journey

across the peninsula, rattling the palms.

 

Source: Poetry (November 2006).

 

 

 

A Kindness

 

 

This morning I woke up angry at the Jehovah's

Witnesses. Why not go help

someone in actual need, I thought; or at least

go stand by a well, in case

a baby drops in. But I was kind to them

when they came; they were ladies and I

couldn’t help it—the one

standing a little behind and staring

away to the side, down to the end

of the street, where surely

fields used to be; the other

doing the talking, bending a little, as if

she were pouring tea through the screen

door—what was it—something from

Matthew, something better than "Jesus is

Watching," and as she was talking I

was bending a little back, as in,

in return, because there was something about

the noon sun, beating the bare head

of the lady gazing away, that seemed

to demand it. These summer days—they are

so big, so empty, so blank that long-ago fields

can actually fill them, and you can stand

on a porch, and, staring, fill up the fields:

whether with flowers drowsing, or

workers in wavering heat, or children

in deep shade. What was the lady seeing?

Maybe the children, waving. Maybe

a cloud, coming.