John McCrory

Another

Another year of promises has fallen from the trees.

Yellow, maroon, faded a dullish brown,

My thin commitments, crumpled-down ideas,

My paper vows, now sunk again in murk.

Now sun again comes knocking at my head socked in with fog.

I take the rake up anyway and sweep these

Musty tomorrows, tiresome monologues,

In oaky burlap bags to bog the compost.

Mere promises make nothing happen: No kiss will free this rogue

From croaking boasts. Condemned to turn in circles,

The moon with just one face to show, some ghost

Mixing this bin of scraps, the greens, the browns;

My worms will do their work. After the frost

I’ll shake this new earth on the garden bed and sow some cowpeas

in its dark, warm loam.

 

The Wee Hours

In the dim kitchen light in my pajama bottoms

I’m spreading peanut butter in fancy curves

To the edges of a slice of toast, a marvel

From an ancient jar of Skippy I salvaged from Mom’s fridge

After we had to move her out of her townhouse.

It’s still good and delicious and I wonder

If she’s awake right now, staring into darkness

From her bed in the new apartment

Whose door she’s not permitted to lock,

Hungry for a little something, even just to pass the time.

Now we’re each adrift in midnight’s quiet, so quiet

I can hear my heart breaking in my ears

Just the way the clock on the wall gets inescapably loud,

Ticking on and on like those stripes on the highway

Which look three feet long but stretch more than ten,

Tricking us to go faster to wherever it is we are going.

Out the kitchen window, the Corolla Mom can no longer drive

Waits loyally for her beside our Camry.

It glows in the moonlight like a perfect, white egg.

 

Pavane for a Boy’s Mother

They said our son has my eyes but your smile,

Stealing unguarded hearts without their knowing.

Open delight, so innocent of guile,

They said. Our son has my eyes, but your smile’s

Still there, my dear, bursting my heart. Our child’s

Grown up, has lovers all his own. Glowing,

They say our son has my eyes. But, it’s your smile

Stealing unguarded hearts without their knowing.