Portent
And how to explain that yellow smoke? Is it
signal smoke, the smoke of sacrificial offerings,
prophetic? Born of the burning of unholy things?
The yellow haze of gypsies, soothsayers and bombs.
and will not be gone.
What good could come of such a thing? What could it signal
that is clean? See how it lies low and eager to come in?
Yes, you see what I mean. It is Spring again.
The roses reincarnate the yard, and still, outside
the yellow smoke hangs sullen and sulfuric, daring us to breathe.
We try to blow it free like cake candle flames, but the smoke
remains: muzzle pointed at us, the yellow of rotten grass,
of nicotine stained fingers and newspapers in rooms
where we pass time reading the same stale page.
I have measured out smoke in pipes and corridors;
yours are not the only eyes that burn from what presses
at the panes. I have seen the smoke of fires rise
with a full-moon wind, but that smoke rose. Since then,
since then pillars have smoldered low beneath our feet.
And I can only think two ways free: to open the window,
let the patient smoke in, to anoint the room with what follows behind;
or to bide time until it slinks to another street, every tatter of it gone,
and we can wipe the glass clean.
