By Peter Mladinic
The Hard Hours, a tall, black paperback,
by Anthony Hecht, said, “Open me.
July 30th is past, the 31st is beginning.”
A talking book. The dark sky
starting to crack, break up into pieces,
I sat in my open garage.
Last night I collected part of myself,
that broke dishes, slammed doors,
and stared out a window,
and shook its head, no, when I asked,
“Do you want to talk?”
I put it in my Jeep and drove it far out
to the sand dunes where hunters
aim rifles to bring down doves,
except there was nothing out there
but darkness. I opened my Jeep’s tailgate
and let it out and drove off.
Now it stood at the edge of my driveway.
“How did you find your way back?”
It walked past me,
through the door, into my house
as I sat in front of my Jeep.
The sky getting light,
an American flag on a brick column
of the house across the street
waved in the wind. I wondered what that part
of me I thought I’d lost was doing inside.
What will I do? The sky got lighter,
the wind subsided,
the flag waved only a little.
From my foldout in front of my Jeep,
the flag looked like the upper right corner
of a page whose words I couldn’t hear.
Mourning doves cooed.
A car drove by, braked at the Stop,
and turned left.