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| Growing up in the fifties |
Neighbors leaned out of windows
To see a pretty girl pass by
While bombs fell out of the sky
And flames lit up the mirrors.
Outside, you notice it has started snowing.
Fevered forehead against the cold windowpane,
You watch the flakes come down one at a time
On the broken bird feeder and the old dog's grave.
Just the silence
Growing deeper
As the child leaps from the window
With her nightclothes on fire.
The more you reflect on things,
The more you feel sure of nothing,
Except being here,
Holding on for dear life
To a few eccentricities—
The wild apple tree at the road's edge,
The old blue pickup truck,
The one with the flat tire,
And the rusted, cast-iron stove
You meant to take to the dump.
—A cento created of full and partial stanzas from Charles Simic's poetry
collected in "That Little Something," Mariner Books, 2009.
Title includes a seminal line from William Carlos Williams' Paterson.
