Ray Heinrich - Two Poems

   when i mention you
   the doctors 
   are kind at first
   but then they tell me 
   that i've made you up   
   and they try and try
   to do away with you

   but i tell them 
   that your hands were new leaves 
   seen through new glasses   
   crisp against a clear sky

   that your face was a voice reminding me 
   of promises made long before the war 
   of letters written and words said 
   that refused to be the past 

   there was a picture of us in the truck 
   coming over 
   the crest of that last hill before home
   passing the few trees in northpark colorado
   us looking like the life we left
   the barbed-wire fences and the grass we made into hay 
   to feed all those cows that your mom loved so much 
   and that i 
   never understood

   suddenly the word korea would appear
   with the correct pronunciation of some river or hill
   but i quickly changed it 
   to the barn 
   or the tractors 
   or the school board elections

   a picture hangs in my head of you 
   the space grown larger than my east coast soul
   and i am always waiting for the motion to return
   needing only new batteries or gasoline or parts

   it is the time of year 
   that the leaves 
   take on the color of your hands 
   and the trees are crisp in the clear sky
   and every image and smell and the scent of your breath 
   cannot be told from the other      

   the doctors 
   are kind at first
   but then they tell me 
   that i've made you up   
   and they try and try
   to do away with you

   but i always knew your name
   and i always draw your face out of the leaves 
   crisp in the fall that no dream could match

   their details thrown over you
   have made a poor shroud full of holes
   through which your sun 
   shines brilliant in the night

    i'm looking at you

    thinking

    it's a pity the large animals have already eaten