JOHN HOPPENTHALER
BLUE FLANNEL PAJAMAS
Is
it the story or the story of the story?
—Kimiko
Hahn
Finally he spoke to the moon
that he was happy, and then he
was. Things like that can happen when
the light is right, when dreams linger
past the struck moment of waking.
Indiscretions turned to orange
snapdragons scattered through the lawn,
dogs smiled from the ends of leashes.
And when winter came, their bodies
changed wildly with every touch.
The story of course is far simpler,
more radiant than bright red
cherries thieving blackbirds tore
from his grandmother’s tree each year.
And look, the snow today is strange.
It is like frozen tears
of nostalgia, flakes chipped from
an ice sculpture for the table of Jesus.
Our very lives are small, and falling
snow sometimes insists itself this way.
You must forgive me;
my eyes have turned to cherry stones
with the stain of garnet. The man,
he glowers at the moon. He tears
at the flesh of cherries; he sleeps
in blue flannel pajamas she wore
those nights when the story
was still complex and he wasn’t sure
if the moon would prove a jokester
after all. And some hours are
better than others, whorled minutes
shimmering like the holiest rain.
He keeps thinking of the red dress.
I dressed for you, she said, and he
goes over the sin, to have let
the world insist itself again.
