i
good friday
heading south
in a black car
to an evening
stations of the cross—
piano, violins—
on the way
two buzzards
sharing
the bloody carcass
of a run-over mink
they’d dragged across
the street
to the brown weeds
edging the woods
standing with the carcass
between them
their death-angel wings open
they rip through fur
eating
enough
to expose
the bones
and bloody flesh
they peck at it
and pull it
apart
ii
on the way
back home
at half past nine
it’s too dark
to see
the mink’s body
nobody
would regret
the mink’s loss
except
perhaps
the buzzards
nobody next day
would look to see
if that mink
had been devoured
except perhaps
me
a joseph
of arimathea
curious
about death
and my friend
sharon’s
twenty-six-year-old son jay
who died
yesterday
in california
nowhere to be seen
ever again
the shock
a bomb
to her
the shock
unbearable
she so loved him
tears for her
& we helpless
in her loss
iii
madeline tells me
she dreams
she’s in a house
riddled with doors
and suddenly she’s
outside at a wedding
when two giant
white birds
lift me up
out of the crowd
and fly away
with me
i ask her
“did you yell
‘drop the keys!’?”
she says
the next thing
she sees
is me
coming around
the corner at kb’s
just fine,
the swans set me down
i am back
from my
disneyworld
ride
iv
will we all
be coming back
forever?
is this
a karma world
or something else?
after all
the paining struggles
of this life
do we
get to choose
how we live
the next one,
if there is
a next one,
or is it
determined
by how we lived
this one?
does
a murderer
become a fly
smacked by
a swatter,
then a flea
bitten by
a dog,
then a dog,
who, knowing
human love
at last,
resolves to
never never
and becomes
a loving child
raised
by loving parents
when suddenly
killed
in a bad accident
to start
over again
as a mink
until a car
ignores
and kills it
and two buzzards
in andover
new jersey
make
a last supper
of your
immortal
carcass
Sander Zulauf is editor emeritus of the Journal of New Jersey Poets and an editor of The Poets of New Jersey: From Colonial to Contemporary. In addition to editing the first ten years of the Index of American Periodical Verse, his books of poetry include Succasunna New Jersey, Living Waters, and Where Time Goes. His new work includes the “transfigurations” of haiku by Bashō, and his translation of Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) by Pablo Neruda. His newest book, Basho in America, won the Eric Hoffer award.
