THE SWING
~after Marc Chagall
His mouth is open, mid-sentence.
The soles of his shoes are yellow,
his pants are green, his jacket
is blue. The figure behind the swing
is a brown blur. The swing
is in mid-arc, coming toward
the artist. In the ether
above the child, three cats
and a dog named Crazy
who is brown as Earth
are springing into being.
Crazy went away once
for a fortnight. When he got home,
he fell asleep at once. The animals
came with the swinging child
when he drove from California
to Vermont in one day. The cats
are named Thak, Willy, and Quilly.
They all died before you were born.
GladErrand 