Philip Levine / Something Has Fallen

Hand
 by Jean-Baptiste Huynh

Something Has Fallen

by Philip Levine

Something has fallen wordlessly

and holds still on the black driveway.

You find it, like a jewel,

among the empty bottles and cans

where the dogs toppled the garbage.

You pick it up, not sure

if it is stone or wood

or some new plastic made

to replace them both.

When you raise your sunglasses

to see exactly what you have

you see it is only a shadow

that has darkened your fingers,

a black ink or oil,

and your hand suddenly smells

of classrooms when the rain

pounded the windows and you

shuddered thinking of the cold

and the walk back to an empty house.

You smell all of your childhood,

the damp bed you struggled from

to dress in half-light and go out

into a world that never tired.

Later, your hand thickened and flat

slid out of a rubber glove,

as you stood, your mask raised,

to light a cigarette and rest

while the acid tanks that were

yours to clean went on bathing

the arteries of broken sinks.

Remember, you were afraid

of the great hissing jugs.

There were stories of burnings,

of flesh shredded to lace.

On other nights men spoke

of rats as big as dogs.

Women spoke of men

who trapped them in corners.

Always there was grease that hid

the faces of worn faucets, grease

that had to be eaten one

finger-print at a time,

there was oil, paint, blood,

your own blood sliding across

your nose and running over

your lips with that bright, certain

taste that was neither earth

or air, and there was air,

the darkest element of all,

falling all night

into the bruised river

you slept beside, falling

into the glass of water

you filled two times for breakfast

and the eyes you turned upward

to see what time it was.

Air that stained everything

with its millions of small deaths,

that turned all five fingers

to grease or black ink or ashes.