I’ve seen him before, crawling
under church pews, tying
parishioners’ shoes together.
Herding the flock, so to speak.
He forgets birthdays. He kills
without honor. He knows
the things that make us
nervous: burnt toast,
a meeting on a train
and the extra valve in an
alligator’s heart. Raise your hand,
he chides, if your work
is important. Would you believe
me if I told you that for most
of his life he has been busy
answering doors? For him
there seem to be two options:
forget or regret. Two stories
with the same ending: men
in suits with shovels. Now
and now and now, he tries
to convince himself. How deep
is your compassion? he taunts
himself as if he were someone else.
All the world’s a place where he
doesn’t read this. All the world’s
a place in which the water
in the pipes. The world at arm’s
length. In the distance he is sitting
on a mule. He has that childish
look of exaggerated attachment.
Beside him, the single branch
of a dead oak seems to move
a dark cloud like a kite.
Listen:
Robert Ostrom is the author of The Youngest Butcher in Illinois (YesYes Books) and two chapbooks, To Show the Living and Nether and Qualms. He lives in Queens and teaches at the City University of New York and Columbia University.