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Rodney DeCroo
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Behind the Gasworks On Railroad Avenue/ An Odd Gift
Where white storage tanks sit in gravel and tar,
my brother and I push our bicycles
into a vacant lot of dust and far apart trees
that throw skinny shade against a white
one storey brick and concrete building
that was once a factory. We lay
our bicycles on the ground and sit
with our backs against the coolness
of the brick wall. Our legs thrust out
before us in the dust. It doesn't matter
that we are wearing cut off jeans and our legs
will be stained with the dust and our sweat.
We are too young to separate ourselves
from the day with its load of sunlight
and dirt. We are tired and do not talk,
we turn the dirt through our fingers
and my brother says look and holds
his hand out to me. Two pieces of pig iron
in his dirt smeared palm. They're
as black as crow feathers I say. He puts
them in his pocket. Says quietly,
crow feathers, boy that's a
good one. We sit a while longer.
I notice our breath rising and falling
and how effortless it seems. This
is the summer day that comes back to me
when my brother I haven't heard from
in a year or two calls tonight
to say he is living in Jacksonville
in a treatment center and no liquor
has passed his lips for three weeks.
His ex-wife, who won't speak his name,
will let him see his son if he stays sober
for a year. He still has the two pieces
of pig iron wrapped in cloth in a drawer.
He says they help him to stay sober
and do I remember that day and how
I said crow feathers. I see the white storage
tanks, barbed wire, gravel, and tar.
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Yes, I say, and set the phone softly down
(music bridge/ transition into second poem on track)
An Odd Gift
The tulips you gave me have wilted.
They sag like the bent necks
of horses drinking at the river's
edge beneath a hard sun. The vase
you placed them in is brighter
now than the shriveled petals
that only days ago were the color
of fire not rust. When I was five
my father put me on a horse.
It was like being astride a planet.
A sharp kick and the entire earth
moved beneath me. My father
yards ahead, blue work shirt
patched a darker blue by sweat,
rode without turning once.
The huge slabbed muscles
of the neck, the rolling might
of that wide warm back
carried me as safe and light
as air along the path
into the forest shadows.
The river shone in pieces
between the pines like flickering
coins tossed in the dark.
I scarcely held the leather reins.
The horses knew the way to water
and brought us there with easy gait
and snorted breath to fill their thirst.
In this evening's half-light
your dead tulips seem to glow,
like dark eyes of horses
as they bow their heads to drink.
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