Finis Origine Pendet: Black Shoes

let me off

at the sigh, the painted-in locus

on no map

wildness chopped up

and thrown in the river

wainscoting in old houses, drapes stained

and smelling of

shoe polish

the warrior spirit

a bookmark in the manual of restitution

comfort

like a wad

of milkweed cotton

keys glinting on the sill

Grace

high up in window boxes

the cold facts

the peeled

face of total loss

pigeon dumplings for supper

everybody

reading a book at the table

the one that

tells the whole story without getting blood on it.

Charlie Smith ’65 is the author of 10 poetry collections, eight novels and a book of novellas. He has won a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, among other honors. This poem was originally published in Smith’s new collection, I Am Your Lifeguard: New and Selected Poems.