Gas Lamp, 1893

1927 –

In brownstone Boston down on old Milk Street,
up two gray flights, near the gas lamp, the tailor
waits glumly for the midwife. August heat
has worn the woman out. Amid the squalor
she looks around the bed, clutching a cape
she brought from London as a child. It’s dawn
and dirty. The dark tailor wants to escape
to his cramped shop. The woman’s sheets are drawn
below her waist. She isn’t hollering now.
Her eyes are dark and still; blood on her thumbs.
Her name is Bessie. No. I’m guessing. How,
untold, am I to know? Hot day has worn
into the room. The midwife finally comes.
Grandmother bleeds to death. My father’s born.

A Sunny Room at Mount Sinai, 1955

Mount Sinai Hospital. My mother lay
in a good corner room with lots of sun.
The surgeon traced the steps of her death dance.
A soldier then, I’d flown in from France
where in Périgueux’s children’s ward, one day
I saw a young girl in a coma. Sun
came through glass walls; the child was beautiful,

Willis Barnstone

2015

Gospel of Clouds

On cloudy Sundays clouds are in my heart
as if my brother came, as if the rain
lingered among the mushrooms and the art
of freedom washed into the murder train
or rinsed the peat bog soldiers of the camp.¹
On cloudy Sundays clouds are with Joe Hill.
Last night I dreamt he was alive. The tramp

Willis Barnstone

2015

The Good

On the first morning of the moon, in land
under the birds of Ur, before the flood
dirties the memory of a couple banned
from apples and the fatal fire of blood,
Adam and Eve walk in the ghetto park,
circling a tree. They do not know the way
to make their bodies shiver in the spark

Willis Barnstone

2015

Poems

Gas Lamp, 1893

More by this poet

A Sunny Room at Mount Sinai, 1955

Gospel of Clouds

The Good

Poems

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Gas Lamp, 1893

More by this poet

A Sunny Room at Mount Sinai, 1955

Gospel of Clouds

The Good

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