Day of wrath! Day of mourning! When the world
dissolves in ashes!
– From the Burial Service For The Dead
On this hot desperate day
a man in a rumpled porkpie hat,
sweat soaked t-shirt and shorts leans against the balustrade
of his wooden plank porch breathing heavy,
breathing shade, squints back over the last fifty
feet where he nudged against humidity
with slumped shoulders,
more shuffling than running,
jabbing at air with arthritic fists
He swears to himself he can outrace it, knows hecan,
said so in a magazine –
how he can outrace the moment when a vessel in his brain
unravels like a yesterday:
When as a boy on the steps
of this same porch he waited
in fear and wonder for the blast
of the piercing town whistle that silenced Main Street and
announced the sudden arrival
of high noon