Mr.Z
can't believe how grizzled he got
in just one night. The task of shaving
grows heavier because he's so tired,
eyes like flags at half-staff,
weary with mourning.
Everything the Nazis did,
he says to the still-foggy mirror,
was legal. Lawfully elected,
they followed their rules religiously
right to the end of the train line.
He wavers a little with correction
then decides there's more
on the compass-face, more cardinal points
than victim and executioner.
In the reflective silver square,
he shaves himself smooth,
puts on his best face to join
his fellow citizens,
neighbors, countrymen,
in the maze that is Market Street,
determined to search out
those who'd shelter a family in the attic.
Faces will not betray
such righteous nobility-
smooth is as smooth does.
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This Star Teaches Bending
Though long, night was not finished
and not finished with him. He stands,
arms outstretched to lean
against the windowframe, peering
into a gauze of darkness.
In sleep Mr. Z traveled long, clanging
high-school locker-gauntlets
to the house of his first girlfriend
where she's raising children
he never knew about
with a man he never met.
At the door, arms lengthening
with the weight of his luggage,
he is afraid she will kiss him.
Instead, she says, Find out if angels
molt like we do. If anyone
can tell me, you can.
Then, she presses into his hand
a subway token, a blue jay feather.
Then he sees it on the snow,
laying heavily and circled by deer tracks.
It is such a wide orbit we ride
and gravity's draw is not the only pull.
Something beyond us, something
we cannot seem to bear attracts us.
This he understands
because his heart has red-shifted,
a knot has softened and may be worked.
So he goes out to examine the animal tracks,
a series of hollows, crossing.
Today it has come to him,
so Mr. Z hefts the star, hunching
under it, strapping it to his back.
To be a star carrier
means to move slowly
and only with great effort.
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