Clark Park, Spring
by Chuck McKeever
For reasons I would like to say escape me,
I have spent my life pretending
it is something I can wrestle into compliance,
like a toddler too slow to put on his church sweater,
lost in the simple geometry of sleeve, sleeve, collar.
Foolish—to fight for air while others are breathing.
Like the dog on broken leash running
through wedding photos, the man in pursuit yelling
Sorry,
or the teenagers in lifted trucks running
stop signs outside the high school,
who know that we have little but our chances,
who do not know that we make some chances ourselves,
or the mushroom hunters on hands and knees
chanting songs of luck and finding, chanting
names of the dead carried off in pursuit
of so small a thing as knowing,
or my neighbor from Jalisco, nestling
prayer candles in the crooks of elm trees.
Their orange stickers read two-ninety-nine,
a small price to pay for the chance of reaching
Heaven.