Mercy Wears a Red Dress. David Craig

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      It was funny; though large, the whole place

      stuck me as homey, small in some way:

      too many statues—even the huge courtyard

      out front, which had always seemed

      like all of history on tv. The stones there

      felt gathered from backyards everywhere,

      the whole show put together on the fly.

      “We don’t have much money here,”

      our young cleric said; and oddly enough,

      that felt about right.

      *

      My son pointed out Cesena’s donkey ears,

      Michelangelo’s droop: sheet of skin,

      not smiling, hanging down—a four-year

      penance from Julius II.

      “Okay,” I had to admit.

      “He may have revised.”

      I use a tiny bowl for cereal

      so I don’t eat too much,

      but then I have a second helping.

      This happens—so it must be metaphor:

      a human being, tying to lose what won’t leave,

      trying to catch what he can’t.

      Either is on point, and both better

      than the alternative, which is what happens

      when one becomes—how else to put it—

      contemporary?

      Do they hide underneath my table

      when forgotten: metaphors, I mean?

      Do they finally make peace with the Easter Bunny,

      the length of childhood? I like to think of them

      under there with the dog, at the ready,

      to play if all else fails. Or if else does not.

      They are the bulbs on my Christmas tree,

      make-up on a beautiful woman.

      They are every day you’re not here!

      But even if you were, that would only

      be for a time, wouldn’t it? And then

      the mundane takes over again, with all its

      little jobs and goings. And that’s okay,

      at least until I wake again, early,

      listen to the heavenly shuffle.

      I need to prepare a place for you, just in case

      you arrive, and for me as well—

      the one I’m happiest with.

      Of course most of my days are spent

      on family, making this cushion set right

      for Sally, putting that train back on track

      for Bill, watching the whole scene

      with my wife as the sun sets,

      her sipping her lemon pekoe tea.

      The bells ring on the tree then,

      of their own accord. But there are no movies,

      no Wonderful Lifes besides this one,

      which just happened

      as it sometimes does.

      Yeats, once a raven, haystack

      occasionally returns—

      not so flinty as he could be in life.

      He’s up for most sport, doesn’t seem

      to mind that he’s not very good

      at volleyball or field hockey—or that

      it’s tough to move in that suit, cravat,

      nez thing. He’s happy, and being tall

      helps in all kinds of ways. Don’t

      know for sure if he’s onto

      the bigger road yet, but I hope so:

      mistakes are just mistakes after all,

      each gone soon enough, like the bad

      in everybody’s life. I hope

      to meet him, though he’ll probably

      have moved on by then.

      Maybe HD is with him, Pound as well—

      who could certainly captain any team—

      “Father and Gateway to the East.”

      That had to count for something.

      HD has to work off the Freud, WC

      Williams, his sure pace; at the well,

      always, it seems, at the well.

      But I like to think that Cuchulain

      has been comforted, his shroud completed,

      all these years after the mummy dance.

      Most everyone you want to, I suspect,

      you’ll get to see over there, if you

      get over the humps yourself that is.

      I like to think of WB lying down

      in a meadow his language helped create:

      a nice blue moss interspersed, all

      the trees you want. Other folk,

      fans, as well, real and otherwise.

      The high “e”s will offer just

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