文章基本信息

Ghazal of the Messengers

Drury, John

The Prize Patrol has inflated the balloons and loaded a raft

sized check in a van,

but how can they find the street where I live, a dead-end with

the sign torn down?

Crows have landed on the shade trees behind my house, perching

there, waxy

as squat black candles; when morning hits the airwaves,

the leaves will be gone.

Wasps in the ventilator; orb-weavers strung out across the

garage door;

baby raccoons rallying on the front porch, chattering "go to

hell"; snakes under the trash can.

Every night, someone's practicing a magic act, pulling a

tablecloth from under the house,

which shifts a little, crazing and cracking on the ceiling,

along the foundation.

Every gap on the answering machine, every hum without a human

voice

records their message, a monotonous pitch-pipe, the Word that

was there in the beginning stripped clean.

John Drury is the author of The Stray Ghost, published by State Street Press in

1987, and The Poetry nary, published by Story Press in 1995. He teaches at the

University of Cincinnati.