I go with the team also.
—Whitman
These are the last days
my television says. Tornadoes, more
rain, overcast, a chance
of sun but I do not
trust weathermen,
never have. In my fridge only
the milk makes sense—
expires. No one, much less
my parents, can tell me why
my middle name is Lowell,
and from my table
across from the Confederate
Monument to the dead (that pale
finger bone) a plaque
declares war—not Civil,
or Between
the States, but for Southern
Independence. In this café, below sea-
and eye-level a mural runs
the wall, flaking, a plantation
scene most do not see—
it's too much
around the knees, height
of a child. In its fields Negroes bend
to pick the endless white.
In livery a few drive carriages
like slaves, whipping the horses, faces
blank and peeling. The old hotel
lobby this once was no longer
welcomes guests—maroon ledger,
bellboys gone but
for this. Like an inheritance
the owner found it
stripping hundred years
(at least) of paint
and plaster. More leaves each day.
In my movie there are no
horses, no heroes,
only draftees fleeing
into the pines, some few
who survive, gravely
wounded, lying
burrowed beneath the dead—
silent until the enemy
bayonets what is believed
to be the last
of the breathing. It is getting later.
We prepare
for wars no longer
there. The weather
inevitable, unusual—
more this time of year
than anyone ever seed. The earth
shudders, the air—
if I did not know
better, I would think
we were living all along
a fault. How late
it has gotten . . .
Forget the weatherman
whose maps move, blink,
but stay crossed
with lines none has seen. Race
instead against the almost
rain, digging beside the monument
(that giant anchor)
till we strike
water, sweat
fighting the sleepwalking air.
