Hey boy come here — quick,
so he dropped his rake and
ran to the yard by the housewhere probably five hundred
junebugs like a pile of emeralds
and rubies glistened crawlingover each other under each other
in the grass. By god look at them
fornicating, he said and his sonsaid Hold on, I got an idea, and ran
to the house for the bundle of
twine and gunpowder he had tied
together into a bomb for such
a purpose and blew an equally
glittering hole in the yard
a foot into the earth and the punch
his father landed reverberated
in his skull for the rest of his life
and when the assassin fired
it was the last thing he saw —
junebugs everywhere crawling
glistening in the tall summer grass.
THE PALACE
Sarah knew how to cipher
and added up for her brother
his exact age when he asked.
Twelve years three months
nineteen days. She gave him
her cakes. She pulled the fang
of a corn snake from the side
of his foot. She hugged up
on him and said she loved him.
She could sew a pair of pants
for the King of England if
she was given the cloth and
he wanted most of all to acquire
for her such cloth. She likes
to follow she said the raw gold
of her thoughts. She kept a cricket
in her pocket all one summer.
When she talked it was like a palace.
Often he saw his mother waving
from the tower and smiling
he thought when his sister talked.
THE SPOON
Seeing what he could
but would not be —
a blacksmith a cooper
a tailor a woodsman
a farmer, his father
bought a fancy spoon
made of silver from
a neighbor and gave it
to his son who would
only read and read
and talk of books and
when the boy who was
certainly now a man
doomed to a life unlike
enough to his father’s
that all was probably
lost between them
he tucked the spoon
with a deep oval valley
hammered very thin
and a rose embossed
at the end of the handle
into a worn copy of
the poems of Horace
before the boy left
for good — the gesture
a lasting singular
note of goodbye to
one for whom he could
never provide anything
so fine it would shine
in the sun or feed him
or keep him alive. Go,
it said. Go, my son.
Eat. Drink. And thrive.
July 1831
THE LAW
Unnoticed for over 600 years
in the sky the 39th clause
of the Magna Carta
in small letter-shaped clouds
floated and faded as
they were read aloud:
“To no one will we sell
or deny or delay right
or justice.” He wondered
at it all. In the orchard
in May he saw a hive
of bees spelling the whole
of the Declaration in the trees,
the fat queen being the dot
of the i where “We hold
these truths to be self evident.”
He learned by reading
everything he saw: rivers
moving slowly in the winter
toward a thaw — like gold
in the straw. The myriad
faces of strangers. Waterfalls.
Self taught, he read each
document as natural law.
THE RITUAL
As every president
before him
when he entered
the office
he was presented
a rosewood
box the exact size
of a gun case
and the steward
unlocked
the smart brass clasp
with a key
elaborately cast
with the head
of a dragon and
the velvet
was pulled away
as the steward
gestured for Lincoln
to pick up
the pocked gray
thigh bone
of Achilles
and to say
aloud: We are one
in the Greek
and to turn around
three times
and return the relic
to its case
and tell no one
which was done.
March 1861
THE BUCKET
Shock at what he was. Shock
at what he’d done. The man
all day was numb after this —
the unmitigated disaster at
Bull Run. The dead everywhere
his own responsibility, the running
away a necessity for the Union
because of his own amateur
performance as a commander.
He went to the barn to talk
to his horse, he took an empty
feed bucket and placed it over
his head like a bell and sat there
with his horse in the darkness
of his failure. The next day
his aides brought fifty books
from the Library of Congress
and he read each one aloud
from Machiavelli to the Iliad
to the journals of Julius Caesar
and stabbed himself discreetly
marking an X on his chest
to remember his shame bleeding
into his sleeves. Never again
would he leave the fighting and
the dying exclusively to brave men
he thought I have murdered
such as these.
THE SHOVEL
Klong klong klong
he remembers
his angel-mother
banging a shovel
on the stone step
of the cabin door
killing three snakes
at once klong —
one, klong — two,
klong — three — these
alternating
and precise swings
one for each landed
very quickly
like the percussive
force of the mortars
across the river
in Virginia, the snakes
coiling and uncoiling
in agony
toward death — this
familiar American
song banging
at his doorstep.
THE PHOTOGRAPH
Blasted with light for the portrait
that will be engraved on the penny
the lines of his face grow deeper
until he blinks and coughs a little
and rubs his eyes afterward saying —
alright then now it is your turn —
so the photographer sets the powder
and readies the camera for the amateur
who eyes him now through the lens
in the dark of the hood — now be still
sir and take your medicine. Not wanting
to return yet to the war, more sitters
are found for the president including
a chimney sweep walking by and
a girl in a yellow dress with a bow
and then the two of us — reluctant to
say no. Tomorrow six horses burn
in the stables of the White House and
the sound of their screams and the look
in their eyes will stay in his mind for
another year or so. In eight minutes
in Cold Harbor 26,000 men will be lost.
This man is the cause. He looks at us
appraisingly and then the flash goes off.
THE CAKE
At the intersection of 12th street and New York
Whitman carried a loaf of sourdough bread
under his arm like a newspaper and stopped
short for coming the opposite direction without
looking up was the actor John Booth practicing
his lines from Macbeth concerning the murder
of the king for tonight’s capitol performance.
And as the actor passed the star-struck poet
on the street Abraham Lincoln crossed suddenly
toward them and briefly between them mumbling
his pardon as he brushed past them returning
the last red taffeta evening dress his wife would
ever buy with his money, the box like a five-tiered
wedding cake obscuring him, so heavy and large
it pitched a little in front of him as he carried it
precarious in his arms and passed between John Booth
and the poet who both stopped together in the street
amazed to see such a thing — a huge white box
with crimson roses and a vine printed around
the side floating away and turning the day — the fine
multitudinous sea of the day — suddenly incarnadine.
Aug 1864
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