Verse
Skinner, Jeffrey
Jeffrey Skinner The Maple Keys ia their whirling descent they preach, they say there is no future like death, no kiss like the turned black soil of lucky landing. Matched, veined wings snapped...
...came running on heavy leg;,, her umbrella pulling her zig-zag, then inverting - flew off like a black jonquil...
...went wailing up the porch steps, fell into arms smelling of flour and apples - Grandma...
...Matched, veined wings snapped apart, flew again from small fingers: Hamburg, NY, 1959...
...She cursed...
...Then sudden as the last day of summer the air warmed, drops spattered and broke in my hair...
...I put out my hands and they filled with culd marbles...
...Grandma sat peeling apples on the porch swing, her quick eye measuring danger, the zone between us and the street...
...Grandma called from a window, but 1 was deaf, F was soaked with wonder...
...And I undressed in the loud pour, too young to separate my body from weather, ran to the drainage trough now swollen with two rushing feet of rain...
...I sat down among twigs and leaves carried on the stream's back as Grandma stemmed the kitchen door...
...yelled again but could not rescue me from such happiness, the water cold through my arms and legs, thousands of winged seeds swirling around my chest...
...The sky bulged with clouds the color of ashes, then blackened over our game...
...And Jodie got hit with the first big drop in the forehead...
...I watched a line of hail chase the sun down the street toward town...
...Grandpa, invisible as usual, pulled weeds from the feet of staked raspberries in the back garden...
...We spun around, arms out, sinking slowly in imitation...
...They went in...
Vol. 114 • September 1987 • No. 16
