poem draft, dated 11/4/16-11/9/16

And then there was that time—he’s telling

someone, years hence—he hopes to be—when we all

            ran a raging fever, when we slewed

            from the gas range to the icebox, when nothing,

not even the voice of our parents, could calm

us down. You hated me, she says, and I

            hated everything you said. We barely remembered

            the commons, the playground, the vacant

                        lot, even as a concept. Something was hiding

                        in a corner of the basement, misshapen and

            scary, and it got out, made skittering hoof-clicks

            in the dark across the polished hall floor, left

a funny metallic taste in the bottom of the water-

cups. It’s not that something happened, but that

                        something had been happening all

                        along, growing up beside us

                        like an unnoticed sibling or

                        a spectral husband. Corner-

                        of-the-eye stuff, you know?

            The colder air braces you against

            the fall, when it finally comes.

There’s a rabbit in the backyard, nosing

around among the leaves you haven’t

            raked. Mail stacked in the hall, a dozen

            files cluttering the desktop. You shift

and putter, neaten up and put away.

This is no time for pretending everything’s

            changed or everything’s alright, that the gears

            have somehow slipped or the shiny machinery’s

broken.This is how it’s supposed to work, this

is where your day-in-day-out has brought you.

                        The fever broke, he tells the child

                        on his knee, just nodding off

                        in sleepiness or boredom, and the sky

                        was clear and pure and clean.

                        We could count the fingers before

                        us, put one foot in front

                        of the other. We knew our right

            hand from our left, and our neighbors

            from our enemies. Who we were allowed

to love, and who was off limits. The rabbit

is gone, and all the little squabbling sparrows.

            The brilliant yellow leaves are mostly fallen,

            crunch damply under our waffled

boot-heels, or mutely let themselves

be gathered in. And down the street, the engine

            is still running, solid and remorseless.

            O David Kaufmann, sage and bewildered

lodestar of these marginal notes, pray for us now

and at the hour of our waking, pray for us

            before the Law and beyond the door

            through which we passed unknowing.