MUTE CANARIES

            My parents were forever tourists,
Even when welcomed like long lost kin
In plank wood boarding houses with checkered table clothes
On the Canadian border.
They tip-toed to the hall bathrooms,
Much the way they cautiously and politely
Slid their seats at the full course diner,
While the other guests joked as they complimented the hostess
On her gravy and fine cuts of brisket…
They carried their strangeness like cautious canaries
Into a mine shaft, poled ahead of lamp helmeted men
Who watched their heaving yellow breasts

Bulge and gasp at the first scent of unseen gas

As a prelude to some human tragedy

Father always spoke about in the deep shafts of Pennsylvania mines…
On an embankment of concert seats
Ampitheatered on a brisk Canadian night in July,
We watched fiddlers play the chorus to fifes and drums
While children of my age
Were hugged and sweatered by their parents
As the lanterns swayed like stars across the lake…
On that night I shivered like no winter
I can remember before or since;
I, the colorless canary
Who’d lost his will to sing.