Issue 13, November 1997
Ray Heinrich - Three Poems

we can write while the ship loads
now
even now 
when whole bodies and minds 
can be saved
these little words 
like pictures of flowers
mean something 
something like seed
you were the seed
before your eyes 
opened on this world
the first looks and amazement
at the colors 
at the movement
and a hand reaches
and later 
you know 
it was your hand reaching
for the toys suspended 
above your bed 
and you
waking from an infant's sleep 
thinking only in images
these words 
these words 
were yet to come

fully dangerous
he is the hot pistol
that amazed my mother
and he is looking at me right now
laughing as i try
to find a way
to impress you

men of the life of my father
i invoke your names
in fear and distaste and respect
i am slipping again into
shotguns and dead animals
around fires and whiskey

my dream is of taking that shotgun 
to your football helmet
your aftershave
your knives and boots
and to all your goddamn jokes about
sex and woman

but i need your hug as well
furry with body hair
and caution

waiting for understanding
waiting for the birth
of a smarter child 
much closer 
to the god i want 

saturday is rainy 
and the leaves stick
to my car and shoes

oak leaves are the last to fall
different colors of the same brown 
this day is the same gray
as my head and eyes

waiting for the phone to call
waiting for a voice on TV 
to speak my name 
to continue the criticism 
that began the day late 
with not enough light or color
for us proud descendants
of apes high in the trees
who lived for the leap 
and died in the fall


sunday is a tranquilizer 
the size of a football
only it goes too far
until everything droops
with all the gray dust of old
unsettled thoughts that 
drift like jellyfish
in oil slicks

there are no waves
to wash their bodies 
onto the beach 

and i wait 
with desperate patience 
for night