Mark Jarman

The Shrine and the Burning Wheel

On the way to the evening reading, Stopped at a Quick Stop for cigarettes, I saw, as did everyone else parked there Or passing, a gang of boys Local boys probably, Burning the front wheel of a ten-speed. The bicycle, turned upside-down, Stood on the dumpster-side of the store, And one boy glanced from the corner Through the front window. Transcendence, thats what It means to want to be gone As, turning the eyes corner To the sudden glare of fire, The local terror stares in your face. I got the hell out of there, And kept the spidery intaglio Of the one, their lookout, peeping Into the store window at—it must have been— the boy who owned the bicycle In his clerk-smock Making change from the safe. At the evening reading, as the poet was Introduced at length, she rested her head On the heel of her left hand, Full hair falling to the propped elbow, And, as the prologue ran on, Shook a little dandruff from her hair. And what I saw was no longer her gesture But the memory of Nora and Bo Dee Foster And the crowd at the Shrine Auditorium