FAMILY TREE

The snake-skinned man
died three years ago, alone, in Bellevue ~
the heroes, for years, our neighbors,
died in great numbers
and it took four decades
to comfort those left behind -
there are spinsters from up the river, I hear,
who are full of worms,
who talk garbage even when it's not garbage day,
and there are some women who pray
to their holy beads -
there are families as distant
as that hawk over the highway
and a farmer tossed from his land
who's gone a little crazy,
imagines himself in short pants
and tucked in nightly by his mother -
let's not forget the mayor of a small town
who created nothing
but took what he could -
and the grandmother who sewed
and was bewildered by the buzz of flies
constantly about her ears,
who lived with grandfather,
the would-be artist
who splashed more paint over himself
than on the canvas -
the long suffering man
went about with holes in his pockets -
the old child rocked herself to death -
and there was the tongue twister
who believed that he could think
and the maid who broke things -
tired fathers, bantering children,
drunken cops striving not to arrest themselves,
crumbling saints rubbing balm on their hands,
discreet lovers with words
for someone we can never know,
kids like highways running into the night,
debt and pregnancy, ghosts of long lost fortunes,
one or two with their hearts cut out
and pushing them through the park in prams.

-- John Grey