Suburban Dam, and: Pose of Prisoners

Suburban Dam, and: Pose of Prisoners Bradley Clompus (bio) Suburban Dam A line of cormorants settledon the dock, their spear-billsnodding up and down,useless for the moment.Slender curling black necksmerging into sleek headssketched on weathered boards.Above us, a steady droningof jets, fuselages long and lean,always aiming straight.On the dam's flat apron,in a sheen of water,a few alewives flailing,flipping, each no largerthan a silver handthat has tossed downcards of a rotten deal.No mad chase for a prize,no crazed beating of wingsor darting bills, the birdslingering, communing.Maybe the prey is tainted,unappetizing. Maybe they'vehad enough. Hard to tellfrom our iron-railed perch,twenty feet above the dam. Higher still, in the barepronged upper branchesof the tree that kings this place,a half-grown eagle, top feathersstreaked with white. Windprobing all day, disorderingfeathers, but he's still as ifcarved, won't glide downand talon the fishslipping away below,so ripe for the taking. End Page 29 A month ago, his parentsprawled, convulsingon roadside gravel, neara half-devoured rat.Another jet, overblown,crosses the lake's margin,its migrating roarswallowing the wind.Eagle's head swivelstoward a blanketed rangeunreachable now, yetconceived mile by mile,down to the inch:in blued creases of ravines,squiggles of deer trails,intricate grass hutsbuilt by mouse or shrew,and a green-flecked pouringonto blade-sharp rocksbelow an unmapped waterfall,where an eagle could huntand outlive his hunger. End Page 30 Pose of Prisoners Too much good luck no less than misery May kill a man condemned to mortal pain, If, lost to hope and chilled in every vein, A sudden pardon comes to set him free. Possibly writhing, a manrobed by rough stone,lower half of his heada mineral hump coarselyrendered, the rest buried,undetermined. Another,his strong arm arcingover his head, forearmdeforming, meltinginto scored rock hair.Next, a muscled pale torso,arms straining against a rawblock where head would be,were it bowed, depleted.Inspect for marks of theirtorment from mallet and chisel.Sculpted freehand, emergingas though surfacing from a poolof water. A poem one hopesto end feeds off these shapes.Revise once, twice, tentimes. Unready for release.So try on the pose, headangled down in rest orresignation. Lift the onlything still free, undoneblock, that's used to stowa body in waiting water. End Page 31 Place at the zoneof the head, replacewhat maybe was therewhen one cravedpotential, beforemarble froze the plan. Bradley Clompus Bradley Clompus lives in the Boston area. His writing has appeared in such journals as Cimarron Review, Denver Quarterly, North American Review, The Pinch, Post Road, and West Branch. He has taught writing at Tufts University and the Arlington (Massachusetts) Center for the Arts, among other places. Footnotes Notes: The first 19 lines refer to Michelangelo's sculptures Prisoners (aka Slaves), created for the tomb of Pope Julius II, commissioned in 1513. The sculptures were left unfinished, intentionally or not, and were not placed in the tomb. The quote in lines 18-19 is from Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of the Artists (published 1550-1568). The epigraph is from Michelangelo's sonnet, "Joy May Kill." Copyright © 2024 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents