Many Years After    


German Shepherds,      their muzzles wedged

between      fence posts,     growling     water pools in the empty           sound

of spruce trees, funneling           the light.

Hours ago, a family:  two towhead boys scrambled           ahead.

     
"You're not            far now"      the father said,       his leg

gashed      above the knee,           his wife wheezing.

Dead      leaves sound like           panting beneath      my feet.

Without entering a door,     I arrive           inside      
 

    
the right nave completely gone,     bleached planks     disappearing into dirt.

My body casts its          shadow      beneath a painting of shadows

        
barely visible           on a wall          scoured  by a blast.     

Did it begin     one night     as a whistle      only dogs          hear?     

     
A branch scrapes floor-boards,

in a wet staccato,      graffiti reading: COME CLOSER!

I want to     scrawl:          In Memory of Flight     

until  standing on a bench     I see bits of pigment     

holding together          the convert's

eyes,           the curves of          four dogs crouching.            It is almost

dark now.          The mouth      of Saint Jude          is a        scar.    .