by Greg Watson
Driving
my daughter to school this morning, circling the block past the long
line of buses, we notice again the parents and neighbors who now stand
watch on each corner, braving the sub-zero St. Paul air like half-frozen
shepherds, red hearts stitched to their bright yellow vests. Some wave,
some sway from side to side in puffy down jackets and snowsuits, silver
whistles dangling, as if this were a dance with music only they could
hear. "I'm glad they're here," my daughter says. "But I wish they didn't
have to be." I nod in agreement. I miss the fourth grade crossing
guards, their orange plastic flags waving up and down in sync, laughing
with each other, looking each way twice. Though they have not
disappeared as the others have—Amalia, Valentina, Angeles, Santiago,
Liam, Diego—stolen and flown by secrecy of night to a windowless room
thirteen hundred miles away. Stolen by those who call themselves the
law. Last night my daughter stayed up past bedtime reading a book about
the Montana grizzly attacks of 1967. I asked if was too scary, too
intense, and whether it might give her nightmares. "No," she said
evenly, "wild animals don't scare me, or natural disasters. Only people
sometimes. Only people."
Greg
Watson's work has been featured in numerous literary journals and
anthologies, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of
the Net. He is the author of eleven collections of poetry, most recently
Stars Unseen (Holy Cow! Press). He is also co-editor of The Road by Heart: Poems of Fatherhood (Nodin Press). His forthcoming collection, The Shape of Your Absence, will be published by One Subject Press in April.