First American-English Poem

Night Trades

Reenlightened from the night
when a shadow retreated or crept
into a telephone pole, or climbed
into what it imagined
to be a tree in a front yard
humming all day and night, a melody
of voices and web pages,
from here and other countries,

cajoling each corporation
that usurps the lands
they turn to steel and plastic.
The market that financed
them turned the land, as well,
shares the stock broker traded
after a mild uptick.
This other melody,

a poem to a lover
in absence, draped in blankets
without the other,
one believing the other is there.
But here’s the shadow
who did and did not write the poem,
all its substance in the cedar
and drooping wires with a melody

silent and invisible in the cold air
with snow falling on every uptick.
Some acts should be unforgiven.
Shadow birds sing on
the wires. The broker
doesn’t hear them. They make
him feel something other
than profit accruing on an uptick

could ever do. Shadows are more
than absence or shade. Perhaps
that’s what substance is: not
a body to cast,
for what’s a shadow have
that humans don’t. Dial,
then read the poem, and, if the other
listens, it’s the embodiment

of what’s been absent. Appeal
to the shadow in the cedar,
ask of his face in the tree
in the snow-covered yard
if poems for a lover
silhouette its face, if
love is worth it. Birds ruffle
their wings, but the shadow face,

can it have shadow tears,
is it cashing in on an uptick the broker’s
trying to trade while listening
not to some poem. Counted profits
from shares in plastic and steel,
the broker, the usurpers, and the market
use the snowy wire,
where poems could move,

to turn those upticks into points
and not mention a word
about reenlightenment. Not a word
returns save what’s absent —
a poem, lovers, a melody
that won’t turn to plastic or steel
but will satisfy the perched birds
clutching the shadow of love.