Four Feathers
Note: I can feel the lyrhicks drying up, so I’m going to be posting a poem a day from my new manuscript, MAKE BELIEVE. Some of these poems may have appeared on Substack before in different forms. If you read the poems each day you’ll slowly read the new book (which, alas, is presently unpublished) in the order I intend for it to read. I’ll send another note when we reach the last poem. Thanks as always for reading.
AS
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There will be magic The boy announces Over Easter dinner In the living room at noon His aunt and uncle appear The first conjuring Having come over after church Where they were fooled yet again By the old transubstantiation trick And now here stands their strange nephew In his father’s green corduroy coat A lot of room in those sleeves His uncle laughs He refuses to sit down While his aunt sits stiffly on the couch Preparing herself for amazement The boy asks his uncle for a quarter And when that has been disappeared He asks for the handkerchief His aunt is holding in her hand And when that has been disappeared He asks for his uncle’s watch Then for his aunt’s ring Everything they have on Them is disappearing Show me what’s up those sleeves His uncle says The boy takes the coat off And gives it a shake Four feathers fall out The soft downy feathers that fill a pillow They’re growing anxious He told them He could make things disappear But he never said he would Make them come back He puts the coat on again As if to comfort them Then gives her back her ring And he his watch She her handkerchief He his quarter It was something with that coat His uncle insists In the mood now to feign wonderment Now that they’ve been reunited With these things by which They know themselves Like rocks off which Soundings strike and echo His mother is calling for them To come have dessert Leaving the strange boy They will never understand Gathering the four feathers That were the secret