Lasater, Michael

Documentary

In my film the poet (my friend Jim)

first appears framed

in summer rain –– it’s faked of course ––

my giggling assistant stands a few feet

from the artist’s glazed window with a small hose ––

for his close-up Jim holds off camera

a tea kettle to steam the panes

and I have also purchased the sound

of thunder (British thunder!)

so you the viewer are soon swept

into my quick little stream of careful lies ––

Jim trusts me to perjure on his behalf,

and I swear I will not let him down.

Later I wait an hour in mist for

a single drop to form and fall from

a barbed wire fence.

I pay a friend (whom I later fire) for rights

to watch his bathroom faucet

drip. I freeze ice and water lawns,

mix drinks and scrub out sinks,

go trout fishing and take a shower ––

this is Art!

My film is broadcast.

I have a grant.

I win an award.

In late September

I return home, the place I truly know

and will know always.

My father and I drive out

to the Ninnescah where we have hunted

time upon time upon time.

In the evening the crows fly in to roost ––

trailing their scout they flood

over the catalpas where we wait

hidden in the river’s shallow bend.

I look at the water, motionless in the first cold bite of fall.

Above this ancient, sand-veined mirror the crows speed and cry,

their ageless black ritual reflected in perfect majesty.

The river calls them by name.

Lasater, Michael