The Tiger

The rustle of plastic bags 

outside my door tells me

my neighbour has returned home. 

I listen for the muted chime 

of keys pulled from the pocket 

and raised to the lock, the thud 

of the turned bolt and the slam 

of the door pulled shut against

its frame. I know my neighbour 

teaches at a local college and often, 

at night, sings drunkenly to himself.

When we pass in the hallway

we nod but seldom speak. Once,

I heard him shouting outside 

the Latin Quarter on a Friday night.

A man walked up and knocked him 

down with a single punch. I

watched my neighbour clutch

at a pole to get to his feet, sway,

steady himself, then lurch away

onto the grass of Grandview Park 

and into the darkness like a wobbling 

planet flung from its orbit. I felt 

for my keys and went home. 

-Rodney DeCroo

When I was ten years old we lived

above a tire garage set in an alley.

Mornings, as my brothers and I

readied for school, below us

the racket sounded; the clank of tools 

against concrete, buzzing air guns 

loosening lug nuts, and men 

shouting while they worked.

Occasionally, through the linoleum

covered floorboards, as we

ate breakfast or brushed our teeth,

a word or phrase would float 

up among us as clear and close

as if we had spoken it. 

Sometimes, Fuck! or Shit!

or Jesus Christ! My mother’s 

face hardening as we grinned.

Sometimes a name Larry 

or Greg, or an object, Crowbar

or Generator. Sometimes a command,

Get the phone! or Shut up!  

My mother would play cassettes 

to mask the noise from below

with the frenzied shouts of evangelists.

But God’s apocalyptic word blaring 

from my mother’s tape deck

was never as thrilling to me,

as the voices sounding 

their toiling speech

into the living air among us.

-Rodney DeCroo

Behind the Super Dollar Grocery

a foot path cuts along the embankment

down to the tracks, the woods and the river. 

A strip of dust and crushed grass, 

it leads to forgotten factories, 

weeds, broken glass, truant children 

and vagrants who roam the scrub woods 

that hide the river from the town. 

My two brothers and I take it 

at a stooping run until we cross the tracks 

to slip unseen into the shadowed light 

among the trees. The path weaves 

between the slender poplar trunks 

and tangled brush until it reaches

the water’s edge. Here, we sit in the sun 

on a ruined concrete slab and watch 

the river moving past us. The cement 

is warm and rough against our bare legs

and the palms of our hands. Across 

the river a tug boat silently pushes three 

coal barges downstream. The small, 

dark shapes of men on the decks 

of the tug are distorted by the heat waves 

above the water. They waver and shimmer 

and blink out. The coal piled atop the barges 

dragging the deep and murky current 

are mountains of blackened ashes. 

My brother Lynn breaks the stupor we’re 

in because of the heat, wondering out loud

who made the path that we just took.

-Rodney DeCroo

Standing in Norman’s Produce store, 

I lift the top from a box of dates to see if they’re

fresh. I peel away the plastic wrapping. The dates 

are soft and dark;  the way I like to eat them. 

I put the box in my basket, fold the plastic 

over the dates, and put the top back on. When I get home

I’ll raise the open box to my face to inhale a scent

that makes me think of night, molasses and earth. 

Standing in the kitchen, I’ll take one from the box 

to eat it slowly with my eyes shut. I know that dates

are grown in brightest sunlight, but of that light

they make a darkness I have to taste.