Poem for Sunday

Migration
By Tony Hoagland

This year Marie drives back and forth
from the hospital room of her dying friend
to the office of the adoption agency.

I bet sometimes she doesn't know
what threshold she is waiting at --

the hand of her sick friend, hot with fever;
the theoretical baby just a lot of paperwork so far.

But next year she might be standing by a grave,
wearing black with a splash of
                                        banana vomit on it,

the little girl just starting to say Sesame Street
and Cappuccino latte grande Mommy.
The future ours for a while to hold, with its heaviness --

and hope moving from one location to another
like the holy ghost that it is.

--------

From Poet's Choice by Edward Hirsch in today's Washington Post Book World. Hoagland, writes Hirsch, "has a smart and sassy way of thinking about America in his work. He is one of the few poets self-consciously trying to come to terms with -- to find a way to think about -- the apparent omnipotence and inescapability of the mass culture that surrounds us like a sea." Because of this, we're at a distance from genuine feeling: "Thus a lovely summer night becomes the 'Commercial for a Summer Night.'" A student tells him that "America is for him a maximum-security prison// Whose walls are made of Radio Shacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes/ Where you can't tell the show from the commercials," and he wonders "if this is a legitimate category of pain,/ or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade."

I'm in Pennsylvania, with plans to go to the Renaissance Fair ( tells me that this one has falconry, unlike the Maryland Renaissance Festival, and tells me not to miss the glass-blowing). Hopefully it will be another lovely day. The weather this evening has been gorgeous, not too warm and we had beautiful sunset colors. And guess who I saw, plumping up for the winter?


Maximus!


Maximus!


Maximus!


Maximus!


Maximus!