James Thomas Hazard
A
little girl wearing her winter coat
In
the morning dark by her mother’s side
Old
man weeping in Union Station,
A
broken bottle in a bag at his feet
My
father’s pale, noon-time nap face
As
I tell him again that Mom is in hospital
Black
boy yelling he’d done nothing wrong
As
men surround him on the floor of the rink
The
world’s biggest cheese in our town’s biggest store
The
size of our house and cheddar, I think
Playing
chess beneath the Atlantic,
Missile
silos surrounding the board
Standing
by gravestones and saying goodbye,
hearing
the jazz hymn of a blues harp