Matthew Quinn

All in Perspective

Earth
rolls through
the tidal pull
of the moon;
ocean rises to
and eases from the sway
of her lunar love.

The planet plows
into the mirror seasons
of its hemispheres
on a tipsy, spinning,
elliptical path.

We forever fall
as an autumn leaf
past the sun,
all of us
twirling and arcing
unawares,

or with equal truth
each holds a central point
hidden within, around which
the universe dances
at our whim.

A Welcome to America Party

I
I telephone to let my family know
we are back home in the States:
Our new daughter as awake as we are tired.
A voice replies saying Jamie is dead.
Dead.
A daughter gained and a nephew lost.
Such is the dreadful economy
of fate.

II
I pace around the empty,
darkened hotel ballroom with a roaring tiger
of a girl cradled in my arms:
seven months old, fifteen pounds heavy--
all lung from the neck down, it seems.
She is no conflict of emotions, my daughter, she is distilled
rage pouring out at me for daring to believe
it is 11:00 p.m. instead of noon.
So we waltz.
Actually, I waltz.
She marches to John Philip Sousa--
heavy on the trumpets and piccolos.
Ignoring her counter-melody, I continue to waltz lightly
and sing her sweet songs.

III
The lighting is dim, the carpet plush. The chairs are waiting
at the side. We walk mournfully in a slow circle
around the ballroom again and again. My newly
American girl screams in the night at what she does not know.
I also do not know or understand. I scream within.
Her purple-faced, curled-tongued fury becomes my own,
touches another pain. My voice is the echo of hers
off the walls of this hollow room. I rage at other,
much darker forces than she can know.

IV
I was at the baggage carousel, hunting
for two bags among so many—grab the handles
and draw up our store of memories
and treasure—waiting to be welcomed back home,
when you melted down the highway, Jamie,
parting from yourself. Parting from us.
As your body cooled
we had little to declare.
Customs waved us on without a search.
Our girl was approved for permanent residency.
The tedium of ignorance.

V
Fourteen and foolish,
the last lost boy staggered into neverland
reeking of gasoline, gunpowder, and hormones--
walking wide-eyed as a deer
out of time, walking out
of night, walking past his blood
on the road. Walking with others he met
only in death.

VI
I travel from dim light to dim light, again and again
in this room. Each time my daughter’s face is
illuminated, then swallowed up in black.
She is beautiful, even in wild anger,
and I remember that face as I wait for the next light.
So far from what she has ever known, my girl grows limp.
Her wailing slackens to a light slumber,
interspersed with gasps and shudders that remember
her former torment. Slowly she surrenders to the quiet--
like another young soul who raged his way to rest.

After Everyone is Gone

Fireflies of memory
flash
in the darkened rooms,
greet my silent passage
with light from unexpected angles.

The past made new
each moment,
a startling shock
of the familiar--
which also grounds me.

Another green ghost rises,
illuminates my face
and disappears
into a darkness
greater than before

while I navigate
the old familiar rooms.

Shortwave

I return after decades
to find all changed.
The clear voices, heard with ease,
are no longer Duetsche Welle,
Radio Australia or the Beeb.
Rather, an endless panoply of hellfire hawkers
declaim heaven and despoil wallets.

Radio Havana repeats
and repeats down the dial,
a liberal sprinkling
of sedate monologuists
between Bible thumpers –
piquant contrast.

Well past midnight
I tune in again,
seek out the rare signal
fading back
then whistling in on its wave:
Fiji, Singapore, Cameroon,
a voice raised
in quavering Middle Eastern song.

The old wonder returns
at words and worlds so distant
carried to this shore
across
a tossing ocean of air.

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Baptism into Oblivion

The multitude gather,
aged and frail, bathe
in the beautiful river,
wash in forgetting
clean as any absence ever was.

Then all dissolves
to a home
which is not home.
Blank confusion
stares out at bland walls.
Worried hands work
against each other
to find … what was it? …
grasped
a mere moment before.

Behold this sleight of hand
of mind upon the self
where the wide river
shrinks to a dead cistern
and the coin never held
never drops
into an empty well
of wishes never asked.

Push Mower

A bright summer day,
I walk behind
the familiar roar
which turns

the dangerous blade,
which cuts its straight swirl
through row upon row
of inoffensive blades.

If I gaze at the green grass,
mesmerized by progress,
it could be any sunny day
of any year since my twelfth.

Grandfather James sits
under a shade tree,
observes traffic on the road,
monitors my progress.

Vincent tastes
cool well water, then returns
the porcelain cup
to its nail.

David hikes
into the east woods,
rifle at the ready
for rabbits in the underbrush.

Eternally unchanged,
they act out their lives
from the corner
of my eye

as I march forward
set on my task
of mowing down
what lies ahead.

Southern Illinois Spring

The pond I fish
holds an offering of sky within
the water. I cast into clouds --
draw them close on the
ripple of a wave.

Geese warble
silently past my boat as
they fly at the waterline.
In the depths fish lurk, hidden
by a thunderhead — their darkness
masked by the gray, moving
forms rolling, building above.

Water spiders dance upon the
mirror surface flecked with dust
of protozoa. A breeze kicks up.
I pull on the oars, slicing
through steely sky. I draw
to shore as the rain begins.

Millions of ripples intersect
each other, unbroken as they
expand, dividing the sky among
themselves until the choppy water
arises in petulant waves. Fish
surrender to the moment
of anarchy, thrashing, striking
wildly at the line I cast again
and again. The sky takes
back itself and returns
water.

Liquipotence

Have you heard?
Hold a raindrop.
Peel apart the petals
clasped within.

Count the flowers
tumbling down
through this long interlude
of rain.

Infinite vibrant colors
lie hidden in the clear,
in the white haze between here
and the far tree line

bereft of leaves,
clothed only in droplets
trailing down
to the brown winter ground.

Hold breath
until the spring. Watch the sky,
alternating ashen gray and blue-faced,
fade away to night.

Night after night
until the gift arrives
of warm light dappled color
glowing through the green,

rising through our shoes
and raining blossoms down.
None of it seems possible now
but that’s the word.