THE GORGE
I.
Little Cuyahoga's done up left town. No one saw it leaving.
No one saw it leaving
Though it left a twig or two,
And a snaky line of rotting
Fish, a dead man's shoes,
Gnats, scarred pocket-
Books, a rusted garden nozzle,
Rats and crows. April
In bone and marrow. Soaked
With sugary dogwood, the gorge floats In the season's morass,
Remembering its walnut, its hickory, Its oak, its elm,
Its sassafras. Ah,
II.
April's arthritic magnitude!
Little Joe ran away
From the swollen man
On the porch, ran across
The muck to the railroad track.
Lost his penny and sat
Right down by the rail, There where his father Couldn't see him crying.
That's why the express Stayed on the track.
That's why a man
On a porch shouted out
Because his son forgot
His glass of iced water. That's
,v-hy they carried little Joe Home and why his toe
Ain't never coming back. Oh
III.
This town reeks mercy. This gorge leaves a trail Of anecdotes,
The poor man's history.
from Collected Poems 1974-2004, by Rita Dove.
{W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York)
©2016 by Rita Dove. Reprinted by permission of the author.
