Children of the Storm
by Michael Daley
Who dwell within the acquisition of spirit
until it transforms, no longer need
pen and paper, or voice
like a man in love, his world exposed
without metaphor or jokes.
And so they came with cash and a van
and bought the desk. Up here since Katrina,
they’d soon be off to Montana.
Why cart around that old sarcophagus?
But they loved its surfaces, and could polish it,
snug in the rented cabin.
The man, a patch on his eye,
didn’t look forward to, his pun,
detached retina surgery Wednesday—
his old dog on a rug, full of questions—
in a whispered inflection, he was
“kind of a Cyclops today."
Why a desk, I didn’t ask. But why Montana?
A new leg of a rootless odyssey? On the phone
I’d said too much, my directions, I thought
clearer than electronic guides. “Oh, no.
Even a stupid GPS tracks you down.”
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