green line sutra

unwashed sky this east wind bitter—big raindrops
spaced wide smacking asphalt: inchoate
pattern—umbrellas faces black raincoats wait on
the green line inbound arriving at Harvard Ave:
mercy may fall like rain but not this rain

& mother: collapsing white trellis still wound
in unpruned roses—that is, convalescent
ancient at a loss—but that was yesterday
& the sky didn’t promise much then either:
opaque future—cumulus layers of past

as rain comes down sparse chilled erratic—
woman with crouching tiger tattooed on pale
left forearm offers her seat: I ask no one when
I got this old—& you yet older, us
riding the green line 1962—&

mother: ancient Cape Cod house collapsing on
that flood plain in massive rain—brother sister:
never at once in the same place—the house
wrecked as the green line train runs through it: sister,
elder: brother, younger—distance like continents

so how would forgive you appear to either: glare
splashed on these subway walls, these shadows
attenuated, sulfur reek, the green line rattling
on toward Boyleston back in time back in time—
at last emerging to more percussive rain

Jack Hayes
© 2015