Ford and man aim stiffly toward the frame,
Ranch Wagon north, my father somewhere south --
But who can picture either one of them?
I see that car, I guess, my acrid youth,
Flash of chrome, fogged screen -- and, when we moved,
That cat we hit, flopped from its crushed skull
On the road behind. My father said it proved
All dodges cancel out; All Ahead on Full,
He said, and don't look back. How did he know
We'd lose the road, and swerve from off the plan
When crooked routes misled, or that we'd throw
His maps away? Just do the best you can,
That's all I ask. The camera clicks... time's torn...
I'm seven, eight... last sister's just been born...

I wonder what she thinks they'll learn tonight
From two blocks off, from lonesome hoot, mad shriek
And metal moan, this blinking ruby eye?
Transport, I guess, a ticket out from bleak
Existences: this boy, this girl, their Mom,
Three sidewalk engineers who've claimed worn seats
To marvel once again where wheels come from,
Who catch trains up in nets of city streets.

"This one's so long!" the young girl shouts. "You're right!"
Mom points through blast and blur. "Just look at all
Those tanker cars!" Her son, in fevered thrall,
Counts loud and hops, to keep his tally true.      

I wonder what she thinks she's shared tonight,
The kids in bed, train gone? Though I'd watched too.

-- Wish You Were Here* -- standard postcard greeting
-- Poems aren't postcards to send home -- Anne Sexton

Dear friends, dear friends at home, resent
No pagan rite nor chance event
We've failed to photograph for you
With technicolor flair in the true
Late Tourist Style. Be satisfied

You're there, not here in Circe's herd
Or dodging stones some Giant's hurled
Or fending Triton's tempest blasts
Or lashed, like me, to a shattered mast
As tempting taunts roll down the tide.

When night winds grind the wheel of sleep
Consider Cyclops, counting sheep;
When home-fires cool, just think of us
Attending smokes more perilous!
Home-bound friends, be notified:

This holiday's a Trojan Horse.
The wine's gone bad. The weather's worse.
So mark our fates by this palsied hand:
*Have sacrificed most every man.
Now homeward-bound. Still terrified.

Just because a girl is pretty
they chain you to a freaking rock,
invite the tide to nibble? ******
way to treat a Princess, and mock
a future Galaxy! Oh, crap --
now what the hell is this? A monster,
seaweed dripping, snip-snap
jaws agape? How gauche! It wants to
ravish me? Take a number,
Frankenstein! Start at zero!
Oh, save me, Perseus, come on
future hubby, Action Hero!
Let's get down to the nitty-gritty!
Can't you see this girl is pretty?

A maple leaf flares slow, so slow
Quick children never see, or know
The cruelest days are autumn's, so
They run, and fire, and fall, and throw
Their bodies down. But o, but o! --
The sweetest breaths are autumn's, though!

Even the stars, they say, and worlds -- but first,
It's April rain, it's light on greening gardens --
One sparrow, yes, in book and branch -- then worse,
All memory of love, the heart that hardens,

Resisting still the news. Seasons, reversed,
All water, always, quick or slow, the snow
On fields, then farmers' woods and crops immersed
By river's-work, and floodplains' overflow.

All leaves, all trees, all earth by wind dispersed;
And men, men too, each falling long-rehearsed.

Weight back, son, back -- now!* Pivoting in air, I felt wood crack
and sent one screaming over first. My three mates whirled
around the sacks and fierce joy burst past, or through...
First inning, Father. Bags full. And all for you,
who, miles off, listened hard beneath a static sky.
The radio crowed: "Grand slam!" -- and "You'll be next to die."

Once, you showed me something about the stance,
how the weight came through, and how the dance
of foot in dirt was beautiful and clean --
I don't recall the point -- not now, I mean.
But I still can see your hands, the coiled way
they worked the wood, and how your wrists turned,
mirrored snakes, twin roots, and how the simple day
was shaken by... what was it?... by all I'd never learned?
Your fingers were stubby, grimed with grease, coarse hairs
tangled over bulge of blood. My youth still fares
its way from lost to lost. I move my dancing feet
to match the steps you traced with yours -- and life's complete.

Yet as I gape and gasp in desperate dark,
a voice returns, riding warm winds from that park.
These forty years, I've been turning into you.
I have your hands, your heart -- and these will fail me too.