D. Nurske: Two poems

On a bridge over the Pace Freeway

a junkie held a knife to my throat

and said: your coat has many pockets.

I took it off very slowly,

the cars passing under me.

I was sure nothing could go wrong

while I was trying to help.

His voice was slurred

as if by great distance

but the blade was steady.

I began telling him. a story:

how I'd hitchhiked from Pueblo to Cheyenne

looking for work, and found a job

painting the white lines in the road.

I could feel the prick of the blade

against my adam's apple. I thought:

if you're telling this story,

you must live through it.

Somewhere there was a cricket.

The bridge rocked constantly.

He held the jacket between his legs,

extracted the billfold with one hand,

counted the money with a sidelong glance.

He nodded, as if there were a sum

I owed him, and moved back a step

to let me pass. Then I feared him:

I was no longer entirely at his mercy.

I waited. Traffic passed.

There were snatches of music

and voices telling the news.

I said I was waiting for a friend

who was to meet me at dawn.

He answered: there is no one,

but he'd begun to back away

with the coat under his arm,

ten steps between us, twenty,

and I was on the other side:

a street of shops that seemed miniature,

the lamps still lit though it was daylight.

In front of a shuttered grocery

someone had left hampers of milk and bread.

The silence was absolute.

On the grate of a cantina

there were signs for last year's dances.

The gaunt dogs, that; sniffed as they pleased,

flinched when they saw me, then caught my scent

and knew I had no power to hurt.

I walked through them as if on stilts.

I came to a phone and dialed a number.

There was a holding voice and music.

Another number: another voice, music.

I had no more change. I looked behind me.

I walked quickly past tiny houses.

I smelled toast and heard children arguing.

A sprinkler winced, despite the drought.

I could hear the clink of a tame dog '

moving on a chain, clearing its throat to bark.

I broke into a run. Already

I could hear the hum of the next huge road.

Immense Fires and Not Yet Summer

The face responsible for opinions

hasn't slept in three days,

the mouth in charge of facts

has begun to stutter.

The cloud that hides that city

is radiant and lights the room

where we watch, legs dangling

on the edge of an unmade bed.

I turn to tell you

"I foresaw this, so did you,

seeing this coming made us a couple."

Your finger is on your lips.

Your eyes are rapt, flares in reflection

cross your cheek like moods.

On the screen the armored personnel carriers

have arrived, already the shots sound

a split-second delayed, as if on a separate tape.

D. Nurkse's books of poetry include Shadow Wars, published by Hanging Loose Press in 1988; Staggered Lights, published by Owl Creed, Press in 1990; and Voices Over Water, published by Graywolf Press in 1993.

Copyright World Poetry, Incorporated Jul 1995
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