He Paid my Wages, I Suppose

 

He Paid my Wages, I Suppose

 

He paid my wages, I suppose,

his hands out, back stiff, eyes closed,

and once I saw him speak.

It’s never too late to teach 

so she pays me to this day,

ever since I tuck tail, run away in that you might call

strategic withdrawal, 

if you could be bothered to call it at all:

giving up the ghost, 

leaving for the coast,

I cared some, because it no longer brings me back again

and for that I am thankful to them

in no small degree.

A modest sum for sure to Kingdom come,

and be told tomorrow we should commemorate some,

but it's all a bit last minute to put much in it:

I read stories, tilled his subject, 

let slip the dogs of intellect

to do their business, 

translate, interpret

found nothing that might shatter chains.

Instead remembering uncommon storms, unseasonal rains

calling me there from far away, 

swamping the desert on that very day

I had planned to pay respect and maybe pray,

well, something of that, certainly.

But supplicants swearing humdulluh, humdulluh,

were breasting waters high, fording rivers far

and giving us this day,

if only they might be allowed 

to splashdown safely, drop a fare,

rowing back as far as they could dare

within floods enough to raise Noah’s ark.

Whilst above, in knitted brows of cloud dark,

Zeus himself in anger with lightning strong struck

sent serpent forks at some flailing trucks

or other, until we abandon ship; 

shrug, get on with it.

Girls in class were frowning, clustered around a dread

that is blank sheets of paper, all words have fled

and must come from within to fill,

takes courage to face any mouse and kill,

because scissors cutting wrapping paper

are blunted by headstones,

there’s no little weight, 

you can't tease something out,

but mostly after rain comes drought

and black shapes clustered there in clumsy shadows,

with all the depth that youth will allow,

to be received with reservation’s frowns.

The rains that fall, the winds that blow,

in the end, I guess that’s all we know,

but he paid my wages, I suppose.