Kevin Grauke

Earthworms

A summer morning. As I move slowly, step

by wary step, through the silent pinkening

of my still-sleeping neighborhood, I watch

for those stranded on sidewalks by the night’s

retreat. Though it takes effort, and though

I sometimes risk toppling, I lower myself

delicately down, low enough finally to nudge

their writhing blindness toward the safety

of dewdropped grass, because soon the sun

will rise high and harsh, quite keen to crisp

every raw and feeble straggler, including me.

 

Hester’s Basket

Next to rusted fairies guarding our more rusted gate,

a prim stray sat in our garden on a square of gray stone.

Scarred and scared he approached me, slow as a pawn,

drawn to, then through, the back door by chicken paté.

 

We chose a name, not yet knowing how the clinic vet,

when set to inoculate, vaccinate, deworm, and unsex,

would find downy pearls sown by a Dimmesdale tom,

and so Chester lost a letter to become our feline Prynne.

 

Through our windows, she’d watch the threats of the world

pass by—the cars and dogs, the boys on bikes—until night

blackened the view and we’d lower the blinds until morning.

Grateful, she’d curl herself into a muff at our feet and sleep.

 

Years later, on the final day, she sat still—stoic and silent

in the spring’s warming light. When the vet’s empty basket

came inside, our girl was nestled in my lap, a ruff of bones.

A needle’s invisible work then made her nap permanent.

 

I petted her a minute more, still expecting to hear and feel

her purr despite knowing better, then finally passed her over.

When the vet left, his once-empty basket, the perfect size

for Easter eggs, left along with him, hardly any heavier.

 

In Memoriam (Summer, 1978)

i.

Before the rest of the family, I wake

to unlock the front door and tiptoe

through the damp grass of a Sunday

morning to retrieve the newspaper,

hoping the comics weren’t forgotten.

 

ii.

After the first sun-heated seconds

have sprayed warm onto bare feet

and grass, I breathe in the smell

of garden-hose rubber as I gulp

in its first cold, clean splashes.

 

iii.

While an evening sky pinkens

behind a baseball slung underhand

as high as I can manage (and then catch),

an announcer on my portable radio

says, Low and outside, ball two.

 

iv.

After the news ends, I’m allowed

to watch Johnny shrug and smirk

and tell jokes that make Ed laugh,

but once he swings the invisible putter,

Dad sends me to bed. The day is over.

 

v.

To those of you old enough, please

remember these times with me.

Let them be prayers of a sort—

the only sort I’ve ever known—

to slow this world’s rush to end.