Three Poems
by Thaddeus Rutkowski
WILD HEARSE
My sister and I were riding in my father’s car
when he pointed out the window
and said, “That’s a hearse.”
“A horse?” my sister asked.
“No, a hearse.”
“A wild hearse?”
That’s what I wanted to call it:
a wild hearse, big enough to carry a corpse,
but wild enough to go wherever it wanted.
It could bypass the gates of the underworld,
guarded by the three-headed dog,
and head for the gates of heaven,
guarded by the saint with the keys.
All of this was obvious to my sister,
who was younger than I.
She was on a joyride,
oblivious to the purpose of a tamed hearse,
but in touch with the energy of a wild one.
SCENE FROM A BENCH
On an East Village sidewalk, a man is playing disco music on a speaker
and shaking maracas to the beat
when a young woman comes along
and dances to his shakes,
so he gets up and dances with her
as the portable disco plays.
Next to me, on my same bench,
a woman lights a hand-rolled cigarette.
while in the street a man yells, “Help, police!”
not for the woman and her cigarette,
and not for the man and woman dancing
and not for me, sitting on the bench
with the woman and her mysterious cigarette.
I’m just reading a story in a book,
while in front of me the man and woman dance
and next to me a woman smokes an unknown substance
and in the street a man yells, “Help, police!”
not expecting the police to hear him
or any good Samaritan to lend a hand.
IT’S THE GOVERNMENT
I go to a stoned poetry reading
where every recitation is interrupted
by the poet’s laughter, tears,
or loss of balance.
Funny faces are made
to get points across.
One woman does an impression
of her second-graders looking confused.
The government is blamed
for every personal tragedy and every social ill.
It’s too much excitement for me.
I haven’t smoked anything since the ’80s.
I just want to have my drink and snack
and go home, but I can’t do that
because we are in Bushwick
and I don’t remember how to get back.
BIO: Thaddeus Rutkowski is the author of eight books, most recently Safe Colors, a novel in short fictions (New Meridian Arts). He teaches at Medgar Evers College/City University of NY and at a YMCA. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship and a Best Small Fictions award.