windmill: my brother Stanley told me that grandpa, because he died under
the canvas wings of the windmill by the lake, had his
soul caught in one of them, stretched like a moth in a window
curtain, or like a crayfish in the net we dragged through the stream, like a
paper angel mother hangs over doors at Christmas. he is up there when the wind blows, turning, so much that he must
be confused now which is land and which is sky, if the clouds are people
moving, automobiles along calm blue roads, or if a green
sky is raining the spikes and sways of trees.
the reflections in the lake, the things reflected, all rippling with
movement and slow circles. he’s spun
around and doesn’t know which way is up to heaven, so he just sticks there in the
canvas wing, up in the wind, wishing he could fish just one more time, in the
lake or in the sky, it doesn’t matter which.