Hush
It’s just the wind, she says,
and not the cigarette pull
of a stranger in the roadside weeds,
the wind, and not the ember burrowing
like a mite in a dead bird’s wing
or your fear that the weeds will catch
and it won’t be wind any more,
the wind, and not the shadow
blazing brush toward the few
still-lit windows that glow
like cigarette tips through the leaves,
but the wind, the wind
through his hair, his lungs,
his easeful steps, quiet
as the wind or the wisteria
gripping the screen or the small boy
running through the moonlit woods
from the man who entered
like the wind in his ears
as the trellis bends
to those open, hungry hands,
or the maple shuddering at the screen
where no one’s home
but the wind
that watches itself fall
to the man whose suit of flame
crackles like the wind
that comes through the screen
like a mother saying
hush it’s only the wind,
or a mother saying hush
it’s only the wind.
from New Orleans Review, 28/2 (2002)
