by Sean Thomas Dougherty
The way the light falls
x xx on the snow in the backyard
& the shadows
from the fence
x x xxxx like lines of a music staff,
& the criss cross footprints
of the dogs are notes,
x xx xx ones you can almost read,
& you begin to hum,
as if you’ve discovered
x. x xx some random song.
The way I watched a street musician
in Dublin play the notes
x xx xx of birds who sat on telephone wires,
or was it that he sang them?
Sang those notes
xx x xx that were gifted to him
as if by God,
who really has nothing to do
xx xx.. but help us get through
the days of long shadows
that reach inside our chests.
x xx x x I saw today a small brown child
at the convenience store
stand & open the door over
x xx xxx & over for strangers,
as his mother waited in line
to pay for her gas.
x xxxxx It was such a small thing,
small as him
who could barely open the door,
x xx xx with his blue mittened hands
& floppy eared cap.
His white mother turned
x xx xx & yelled at him to keep it closed
but he ignored her,
& the Bangladeshi counter man
x xx xx said, no he is good boy here,
& gave her a blow pop for the boy.
& she—startled by such a small gift—
x xx x said thank you.
The boy jumped in place
& reached up to take
x x xx the blow pop
& unwrapped
as we all must embrace
x xx xx such unexpected
sweetness.
Sean Thomas Dougherty’s (he, him) most recent book is Death Prefers the Minor Keys from BOA Editions. A longtime disabled disability worker, he works as a Medtech and Carer along Lake Erie. His book The Second O of Sorrow (BOA) won the Housatonic Book Award and was cowinner of the Paterson Poetry Prize. His other awards include a Fulbright Lectureship to the Balkans and the James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review.
Hawaii Pacific Review 