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John Brantingham
poetry
CYRUS​
​
Sometime around 3am,
you open your eyes
to see your grandfather’s face
in your window,
his breath fogging the glass,
but he’s gone when you sit up,
which is just as well
because he died in 1964,
and you were born in 1970.
You get up knowing
you’re not getting back to sleep
so you go outside,
(still a little in your dreams)
to see if he left footprints
in the snow. Since you moved back
you think he’s been watching you,
wondering who the hell you are.
You have much the same question.
CANADA GEESE
​
This morning driving along the banks
of a frozen Lake Chautauqua,
I’m thinking about my California childhood,
how hot it was when we drove
across the Mojave, how I thought
we might break down
and drag our weak bodies
across the sand like the cowboys
in Saturday morning cartoons did.
I’m thinking about how quickly
I came to understand the desert
and then to love it,
how it felt like I was living
on a gorgeous tan alien planet.
Despite the chill,
when I see geese
I roll down the window.
I want to hear them call.
I imagine
they’re welcoming me
back home.
