Gail Calmer

4407 14^th St.

Rock Island, Ill.

            61201

MS. contains

a poem of

lines

Three, Four Shut the Door

I remember him

Smiling from old photographs.

***

Ants drag victims

            Twenty times their size,

            Build intricate brown domes,

            Rebuild their shifted homes,

            Eat, propagate and kill.

            Stubborn things who do not move

                        From out of danger’s way.

We watched them,

            My father and I.

He painted our house

            That summer,

            Took off his shirt,

            Brown God in the sun,

                        and I.

***

Swinging on the gate was fine

Before awareness came

***

It is a strange night.

The child is up

And seeing his plate

            set for morning,

Looks enquiringly at me

            As I smoke and write

Then searches for his

            father.

He will sleep again

            after his is reassured.