April

First Pink Sunset

If all the people in this city

were to turn

and face the same direction,

you’d get something close

to what I saw this evening

walking down Duluth.

The first pink sunset of the year,

and at every corner

people looking up

through every branch

and break in brickwork

on that cobbled street.

There was only one,

a boy who I saw walking up Duluth,

looking at the people

at the corners

for a girl he once decided

not to fall in love with.

Tonight he changed his mind,

and decided

by the sunset,

by the first pink sunset

to go after her,

and by the urgency of night,

the darkness and the solitude

to go before her.

He would go before God

with the convictions that he has—

and if she was looking for him too,

I imagine,

if all the world was looking

for the two young lovers

and would turn

to watch the delicate embrace they chose

before the final moments

of the first pink sunset,

you’d get something close

to what I saw this evening

walking on Duluth.

The Theatre

This is to tell you

how I’ve waited here for you

outside the theatre.

Though many acts by now

have played inside,

I have not seen you arrive

in blizzards

nor missed the show of leaves

in the streetlight

of summer nights.

I have not seen you arrive

the first of June,

that windless June,

and the dancing leaves are silent.

I have been downtown

and to the outer city

past the mountain.

I have not cared what plays inside

the theatres there.

I have waited

with my collar turned

against the biting snow

and my chin raised to the trees—

that is how I have waited.

This is to tell myself

that you must be inside already,

watching every act,

passing every season unaware

of the cycles of the moon.

Because you have not arrived

to find me waiting

in blizzards

or watching the show of leaves,

nor have you arrived

the first of June,

that windless June,

and you have not seen with me

how silently the leaves are dancing.

How the City Parts

You’ll have to wake up,

my love,

and comb away the curtains

like hair from your eyes.

On the rooftop of the chapel

that burned last year,

they are taking down the scaffolding

around the repairs,

and the bell rings out again

from its defended silence.

Up here, the city parts,

at every street it parts

and falls

like hair to the side of the face.

When it burns again,

let us not be on opposite ends;

you’ll have to look for me,

my love,

if I am not in bed beside you

in the sheets we made;

you’ll have to look for me

if I departed

in the blazing night

into a defended silence.