SAND RIVER BLUES
errol miller
Where two divergent paths merge
the sojourner collides
with the web of a golden spider, he
says “well, I’m doing pretty good,” not knowing
if the slipper fits . . ., there won’t be
any perfect day with sunshine where
every secret of the universe will be revealed
we are all on call, sifting our frail pulse
to the wind, off the coast of Leucadia
I saw an ugly boat, I saw the Captain
of the ship writing lonesome poetry
I saw plants and animals dead and dying
and an island, uninhabited, bobbing in the ocean
a bell is always tolling, Cisco, pulsating out of
the brownstone row-houses of Chicago, out of
Des Moines on sleepless nights, grown
so tall, we’ve grown so tall as children
learning to cook nut-cakes and jello, tinkering
with the canker in our brain, a cover-up, an
exposure of the man as artist, running, running
running for practice, running for “purpose,” after
Raymond Chandler’s long goodbye, after the hero
captures all the sex he wants, after the hot heroine
is subdued at last, a cool wind blows down
from the Boston Mountains, the tenants rather
bruised and blue, Milady pregnant, wandering
the silent streets of no understanding, how
the feelings gone away, off the Catskills
on an American Flyer, comes the bower
of a Cebia tree, Johnny Appleseed transversing
the alluvial Delta to higher ground, they’ll
never stop the music, convergence
is all that’s left, and deer tracks
and the carcass hung out to dry
for a few more days.
