C.P. Mangel
Four Poems
LISTENING TO DAPHNE
Deep in the forest I lean
against the trunk of an oak
immense amid the pines.
I rest from running, far
beyond the point where I strayed
from the path to follow an arc
of sunlight. A rope of a brook
uncoils along the ground.
Why are you here? comes
a voice from within the wood,
whisper of sweetness, rustle,
despair, of sap and leaves
and fungus. I look around
to find the source of the voice
but see no one. I answer,
They’re all shouting at me.
The clearness of my voice
startles me. In this place someone
has swept away the wind,
left drifts of quiet and light.
About being chased I know.
They can’t chase you here. Make
yourself a bed of pine
needles, pillow of my leaves.
It isn’t what you think.
I’m not lonely. The bear
comes to me with his soft
belly, the buck with his hard
antlers and the black snake
with the cool smoothness of his skin.
I tell you what you do,
will yourself to wood.
BIRTHDAY
The other attorney rises from her counsel's
chair, approaches the judge's bench.
In that narrow aisle of flameless
light she begins her incantation.
She is so young and her immaculate
throat undulates as she speaks; her fine-
boned fingers unpeel the boredom
from the air. Who can think of justice?
The trial wears on. A parade
of notorious characters march up
to the witness stand; prolong the display
of rhetoric, the details of human conduct.
It is nearly time to make my closing;
still there are lies to unearth.
SEPTEMBER EVENING
I am a chicken farmer
in Winnebago. Mercifully
there is not much time for sleep.
My wife prepares some corn
for supper, peels away
the rough husk tough as rope:
it will burn her hands if she
does not take care. And she does.
I was a cellist in Prague
before the war, before
the train ride to Terezin
my wife did not survive,
before the camp where they claimed
our daughter, the yellow silk
of her hair turned to pale ash.
Chickens scratch arpeggios
in the barnyard dust, and in
our garden the red tomatoes
are a sonata of desire.
Steam rises from the ground
after a summer shower,
adagio of mist and light.
Music not for my fingers,
which have long refused to play.
This September evening
the ripe sun is long, sweet,
and into my palms drop
a few kernels of peace.
SERVING OUT THE SENTENCE
I see first, before the bend
in the four-lane road, the sign
INMATES WORKING
and then along the grassy
banks, the men in their vests
picking up litter—paper,
and bottles strewn on the ground.
Three of the men are sitting
on the pylon between the lanes
in their bright vests—a fresh
paint swath of brilliant orange
across the bleached blue sky,
the word Inmate imprinted
in black letters on their backs.
One bends to pick up debris,
another lights a cigarette.
And the one with unforgiving
cheekbones, rust skin, cropped
hair, he pauses to sniff
wildflowers, then stretches out
his long back, hands on hips,
to look at the drums of clouds
and pipe-organ sky, the horn
of sunlight, while I, for twenty years,
head off to meetings, endless
conversations in windowless
rooms, peer into a glowing
screen at streams of words, old
cases. And dream of escape.
What keeps us from running?
C.P. Mangel is the author of a chapbook Laundry (Backbone Press, 2015) and a blank verse novel A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest (Eyewear Publishing, 2019), which received a Silver Medal for Multicultural Fiction in the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Please visit www.cpmangel.net, a website for Readers & Educators.