WEBVTT

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Thank you.

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I was going to one up Maria
and dance one of my poems,

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but I'm not sure what's
going to happen today, eh?

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OK.

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All right.

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I wrote a poem a
while back called

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"In the Village of
Missing Fathers."

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And somebody-- one of these
inspirational moments--

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somebody challenged me to
write a companion piece

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called "What About
the Missing Children?"

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And I thought,
well, I don't like

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taking prescriptions or
taking suggestions for poetry.

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I'm very independent and
very territorial about that.

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But this one stayed with me.

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"In the Village of
Missing Children."

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"The old do not
call themselves old.

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They call themselves dead.

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They call themselves
forgotten and silent--

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the footprints
made by water that

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evaporate and erase leaving
the ground thirsty for contact

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all over again.

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They call themselves banished,
abandoned, invisible, asleep,

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the winter that welcomes
no guests though it pleads

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for them clearing wide paths on
streets that grow white as bone

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and grieving its
decomposed flesh.

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A wooden bench rots in the
park without a story to tell.

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A lake bends at the
knee without a church.

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And off in the
distance, a body melts

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into the light like the final
whisper from the dying man's

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mouth.

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O, sheets, give me more
glorious butter cups that bleed.

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O, crow, morning's
ubiquitous beggar,

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ask me for a piece of bread,
please, please, please.

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O, wall with a clock
for a mole, I'll

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never again turn
away from the sight

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of your three bristly hairs.

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But no one hears such
supplications or notices

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the weakest of the weak wearing
moths instead of buttons,

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knots of yarn
instead of throats,

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and screwing bottle
caps into their sockets

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to keep the milky
eyes from leaking out.

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There's already a woman haunting
the streets with white feathers

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on her head.

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And when she cries, the
tears harden on her cheeks

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like chicken shit.

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She gave birth to a son
who broke like an egg

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beneath a military heel.

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And what a surprise to find
out after all these years

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she was a hen.

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She perches on a shoe
at night and pretends

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it's an umbilical
cord and not a lace.

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What a disgrace to flaunt
her childlessness that way--

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complain the mothers
who must scratch around

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the pictures of their
decorated dead--

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O, rosary of baby teeth,
O, belly button crucifix--

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in private.

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The fathers cluster at the
bar to coat their battle

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scars with gin.

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One cradles a bottle of
wine and tickles its label

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with his finger
while another tries

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to coax a cork into its neck.

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In the corner, three
shadows rock side to side

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murmuring a lullaby.

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And the bartender
nods off into a dream

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because, at 55, he's the
youngest in the village

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and sits closer to the memory
of infancy than anyone.

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He'll climb atop your lap
if it will make you chuckle.

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He'll let you share your
kisses with a slice of pie.

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He'll even, but only for
the price of a potato,

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let you watch them
suck his thumb.

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No one judges him when
he slips into his truck

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pajamas and begins to nest.

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In the village of
missing children,

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there are sadder
scenes than that--

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a mayor scolding the
mice for eating sugar

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and refusing to
brush their teeth,

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a schoolteacher reading a
fable to a row of coffee cups

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to usher them to
sleep, a doctor's wife

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pinching her nipple
numb over the orchids

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when it's time to feed.

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And every yard, tricycles
rise like gravestones.

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And in the fall, the
festival of raking leaves,

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an annual archeological dig for
a marble, a miniature wheel,

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or the plastic head of a doll--

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any toy at all that
will prove that children

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once inhabited the land.

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One day, a couple
found a slingshot.

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And, for a week, they were
crowned with the most coveted

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of artifacts,
birthday party hats,

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sun-bleached and
slightly bent on top.

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Still celebrated symbols
of the times of laughter.

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But before the couple
gave them back,

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he shot her from behind
then shot himself--

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their blood sprinkled on the
frosting of uneaten cake.

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No one wore the
party hats again,

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and the people curse the
suicides for taking that away,

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and cursed the war with its
appetite for adolescent hearts,

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they still contract at the
sight of partial nudity.

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And curse the men who wrap
their flags around their eyes

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to bind themselves to loyalty.

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Curse the women who allow their
sons to murder other women's

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sons and call it victory.

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And on this village of
the stupid and the blind,

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this curse.

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May you never know the
magic of a child who

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can point and pierce a cloud,
who can squint and cage

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the parakeet before it
flees the house, who

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can bite into a cherry and rule
the world inside her mouth, who

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can color in the autumn's
brown, who can pinch

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the sun between two fingers,
and then, with childish mercy,

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let it out.

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May the miniatures
inside your memories--

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little socks and little shoes
and little braids and little

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dresses--

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pop like seeds and
disperse into the wind.

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May the shrills of giggling,
the shrieks of tantrums,

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sink into the smiles of hoof
prints filling up with mud.

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May the bite marks on
your arms around the edges

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of the pastries lose
their baby teeth and rot

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as you yourselves decay
each child this day

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in the village of
missing children.

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May you call yourselves extinct
and collapse among the cribs

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turned rib cages among
the sticky tar pits that

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used to be the swimming pools.

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May your shadows vanish
from the center outward

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and then roam their final hours
as the outlines of neglect

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in the village without
a playground or a school

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in the village where
you drape your sagging

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skins across the windows
for a last encounter

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with the fading light,
in the village where

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bodies and buildings
marry into rubble

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and can't even birth
the dust, in the village

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without headstones, without
history, without names,

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and without ghosts."

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