Mark Cox
Red Lead, 1978
The way a boy might kick a can,
or a field goal, or a stone to skip
down one long empty street
toward a home that holds no warmth for him;
as if putting on a sock or unbuckling a belt,
some small gesture shared by all of us,
he kicked him in the face. Then,
standing like a hunter over his trophy,
one foot on the tailgate,
he dabbed blood from his boot
with a napkin.
Behind us, clouds muddied the horizon,
pigeons peered from their nests in the girders,
and the latticed shadows of the bridge
lay like a puzzle on the ground.
To the east, the broken-toothed St. Louis skyline
yawned up into haze. It is a trial, the stanchions said,
bound here as we are, our sorrow bestowed
so we won't float toward heaven too soon.
Spot primer, finish coat, blood, dust and asphalt,
squabs laid gingerly down to die
by bottle caps full of water. For miles
that paper napkin rode the Missouri,
getting darker and darker, going under,
being pulled apart and into
the fierce, filthy river of everyone.
Natural Causes, Pitt Poetry Series, 2004.