Autumn Shapes I-V

I.

I took the torn lace outside, droppedit in a pot by the train station and looking backsaw it waving at me and knew it will bloom

again, if not for me, for someone else or the boy

eager to leave. We’ll take the cobblestonesuntil we find our way, but he shook his head. A red

wagon blocked that narrow road. Why, how interesting, I said,

to see what unfolds, howwe can squeeze by, how

they will make it move under magnolia and lilac petals shouting

at the gravel mapping our growling path.

But I understood the draft and the undertowhis sudden change of mood and physical spacethe fist and the squeeze, the hard tug, the sudden run

the air left lonely in the air, helpless and less

important again, just useless, trodden down

like a worn staircase where every step, if you look closely,

makes a face.

II.

In the oval park west of the train station

every bench a dark solitary pocket packed

with soft still bodies, sleeping or dead.

Each falling leaf a spark. I touch a woman’s hand

and don’t know if she’s just cold or gone.

Darkness surrounds us like a tight skin.

It breaks inside me. Snarling, it wakes me.

III.

I’m up there in the north corner, shady, sheltered

from the light beaming in through the windows.

Erasing words from the blackboard, I look

at the faces of my two students, both young and male

knowing it’s time to leave. The others gone already

but these two who walk through the lecture hall

to help me pack my books and put a jacket

over my shoulders: time to go.

Take a look at this dust, these old marble steps, scuffed and uneven,

light filters through windows still unbroken, door

still open, desks used for hundreds of years. This silence

so precious, its core sense of repetition and pause, pause

and repetition. I linger with the scent of chalk.

IV.

The wide stones from the square

to the scattered beachestrying to catch every saillike a shivering mother raising her children,

if she’s lucky, taking them to a real place

without these remnants

torn flags and burning tires.

We run down curling stepsthat hook our toes, telling usthis story unravels with smokeand the smell of gas. It is our time

to see former neighbors and friends

celebrate, while clay surrounds us

and our quick escape shapes usas clearly as the pottery man makes

out of nothing a vessel strong enough

for water or wine. We climb down

the wide stairs and see in each step

a mouth spelling, daring us

to a getaway full of defiance.

V.

Oh, Road

palimpsest of a thousand generations

stamped, I’m sure: “origin Ur”

you stole my home and my name, made me an actor

I ask you why does the boy carry a rodent in his pocket, shares

our rare bread with it?

eyes glisten and gleam in the dark

nails scratch and claw

in my pocket, deep, eating into lint and seam: a key

oh Road, why did I turn around

and lock the door

to a house no longer standing?

oh Road, your dogs are always growling

bare teeth sharp as stones.

Cranes flying south so tight together

sky paints with mother of pearl

oh Road, our faces covered in masks of dust

behind them the rot of leprosy

erasing, erasing every step.

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Swedish-born Gunilla Theander Kester is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Mysteries I-XXIII (2011) and Time of Sand and Teeth (2009) and co-editor of The Still Empty Chair: More Writings Inspired by Flight 3407 (2011) and The Empty Chair: Love and Loss in the Wake of Flight 3407 (2010).  Dr. Kester has published many poems in Swedish anthologies and magazines, including Bonniers Litterära Magasin. She lives near Buffalo, NY, where she teaches classical guitar.