from Hours Near the Crossing by John Peck

from Hours Near the Crossing

Glass breaking and then laughter 

under the open window— 

a rabble of carousers 

drains through the night, blotted 

quickly, although still 

trickles of their abandon 

silver the great cave: 

this is a taste longer 

than echo. And their strength 

is to drink quickly, hear 

only their jangle strike, 

tinkling day into blank— 

the slaves of Tigellinus 

smashing a flagon, young 

fascists, and not so young, 

in brotherly numbness. 

Their bar lies two streets over. 

And dumbly I drift out 

on that sound when I meant 

only to listen further, 

go while my body darkens 

at the cool window, out 

where the night weave tatters through— 

blacker bitch of the crossroads, 

moon in your tooth and hearth 

in the smoky geometry 

of your throat, from a whelp 

we have known you and yet 

only in the weight 

of our having done nothing well 

do you press home. 

                             The men 

vanishing down there, being 

your brats, draw to your pelt 

like iron-filings, smoothing 

to your vast underbelly. 

But I too feel the suction, 

the night is too much yours. 

Closing my eyes I slowly 

bring back the afternoon, 

courtyard and plug stone well 

where a finch without splashing 

dover from one side to slice 

that blue, his font and mine 

in a pact too immediate 

to revoke now. 

And strength not to be claimed, 

strength of the keen forerunners 

unrepeatable, all 

pouted out, itself the air 

burning over burnt hills, 

while the bowl of clear fire 

remains to be walked into. 

At each step remains. 

Little knots of people 

talking cleared ground above 

the city inch through strength 

poured out and trembling and 

unseizable. 

                 It need not 

have been wrong to be strenuous 

though inadequate. 

                            A bald man 

tumbles awake from his roof-chair 

where the heat ripples him, 

disciple gaping up 

at swarms of shape—perhaps now 

he'll hear the command fashioned 

to his one need: Kill and eat! 

It need not have been wrong. 

And one life. Little cracks 

life itself will take care of 

widening. I need no poker 

to find that seam where the ember 

breaks open to burn brighter.

                       *

Pebble into air, 

and the boy's hand cupped upward 

and death not yet mature 

running after. 

                    Birth with sun 

pouring, and in the square 

the common bread lies scattered. 

eaten in urgency, 

stupor, or a blithe 

unconcern for what comes. 

Nocturnals into day, 

a full weave not forgotten 

but not sung through, the whole 

singing not wholly woven. 

Death with us. 

                     And the mongrel 

sure of his rounds trots past 

with his morsel, delegating 

care to the willing. 

                           Listen,

the sound of harpers striking up

in places where the women

draw water. . . .