Clear Expression of Mixed Feelings

Some poems of mine arise from questions about my own self-contradictions as a human being. “Before We Heard Sirens,” explores this tension, one which Dante observed: (Canto 21, the Inferno):

I turned like one who cannot wait to see
the thing he dreads, and who, in sudden fright,
runs while he looks, his curiosity
competing with his terror.

BEFORE WE HEARD SIRENS

His hands were holding her head, a broken bowl,
and he was saying, “Don’t move,” as I gave our blanket,
burning to look deeper into the car
because of the blood,
but steeling myself not to,
but to hand over the reckless, sea-stained scrap
that only moments before I had gathered
like water shaken out in a sky
throbbing with pelicans
and children’s voices drowning
in immensity and here I was standing
at an altar of the dying with the scared
black men from the truck in the outer circle
and in the center, darkness and blood crouching,
curls and glass, the father cupping the head
as through the crack I passed my blanket
with sand in the inmost grain.

from What a Light Thing, This Stone