Joy Dworkin

For A.R. Ammons, After "The City Limits"

And when I consider the diligence, that it sometimes appears
as light from aluminum posts over a highway in the
morning—light the sun made redundant

ten minutes ago; when I consider the earnest, elderly
teller, how she counted out the dollar twice
—fretful, contrite (and I knew she'd been correct

all along, though she wouldn't hear of taking my
word for it); when I consider the neighbor's four-year-old,
training his superman cape to be a sail, how

blissfully he is turned in on himself, wind billowing
at his back (no buses for me, he says, I fly
to school!); when I consider the diligence even of the nonchalant

postman—arriving each day at a different hour, amiable
truck groaning box to box, to deliver mostly
junk, then for a moment I think that some good

books are so right, we are light, we fly
and are worthy, and ask for deliverance, and put up
the red flag, and ask again.

Joy Dworkin teaches writing and literature at Missouri Southern State College. She holds a doctorate in Slavic Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Review, The Paris Review and are forthcoming in Pennsylvania English and Many Mountains Moving. She has a four year old that loves capes of all kinds.

Beauty for Ashes Poetry Review ©1996-2000

©A Creative Ash Publication 2000

Isaiah 61:1-3

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