Drawing by Judith Wolfe

Kay McKenzie Cooke Two Poems


      STEVE'S SKY DIVE

      A message on the answerphone:
      he is going to throw himself
      out of a plane

      tomorrow. He is going to dive
      from an opened door into nothing
      but sky. He's old enough now

      to do this and to always remember
      the thin rush of blue, how insubstantial
      the freight of his bones. At exactly

      the same time we'll say to anyone
      around, "Right now our son is falling
      through his world."

      FALLING MOON

      With a skinful
      of promise, the young dare
      to claim ownership

      of the night. Parties of them
      bay into a dark nor'easter
      their howls heard

      over the hum of an iron
      -throated deisel engine's growl
      and rattle as it drags its train.

      In a grape sky creamed with cloud
      the wily moon challenges their gall: a lone
      headlight it doesn't blink

      as clear as day in the night, a milky disk
      in a cold sky; an ancient, cloudy eye
      that sees into forever, it falls, a silent cataract.


Return to CONTENTS