The Poet Spiel

the end

i don’t think
      anyone cried
on the first day

but
there was a loud silence
around
the kitchen table.

dad phoned
the wheat-threshers,
told them
there would be
no filthy sweat work.

one out-of-hell
sweep of hail
had wasted his readied crop
one day too soon.

no wanted to talk
so i hid my mouth upstairs,
just played and played my Harry Belafonte
till it numbed me dead.

when i came to,
my dumbed diamond needle
was banging
deep grooves in my head.

my folks were still
in the kitchen
staring
at the dark.

the dogs were scratching,
our screendoor
and i wasn’t sure if
the cows had been milked. 

my dad had to quit
a lifetime
dedicated
to farming

and we had to move
where our only harvest
was just a dumb little patch
of green grass where i rooted

a pussy willow cutting,
hoping it might spring up
to cast cover over
the naked bathroom window

of a little white house
crammed between
everybody-strangers
who did not drive trucks,

who made their lights
push through
my bedroom walls
after bedtime

and me, just listening
to the slick-black street
where a kid could not
kick dirt.