Quote by Grotstien Poem by TA Delmore

When innocence has been deprived of its entitlement, it becomes a diabolical spirit.
(Grotstien 1984)




Light in the Foyer

That light will never be
the same. Its least intensity
was when the front door was open
and darkness absorbed all one hundred
watts of naked glow.
I remember the light as a liturgical
calendar.

After midnight mass
as we came through
the birth of Jesus
and swept steps.
Tangible gifts soon to be opened
but sleep first.

The porcelain switch
worked upstairs
to ward off nighttime strangers
or downstairs to uninvite
the evening. It had the same luminosity
for Easter Vigil inviting
Christ’s Resurrection.

It was the terminal light I saw
my father alive in; strapped to a gurney
dimmed like an over-exerted fuse
and no copper penny.