Anthology 15

Enough of the madness - it's time for a poem (and there might well be more to come - the pre-Christmas workstorm looms). This one is by Mark Doty, whose prose works I've mentioned once of twice before. It's a beautifully simple, lucid poem, which really needs no exposition...


No

The children have brought their wood turtle
into the dining hall
because they want us to feel

the power they have
when they hold a house
in their own hands, want us to feel

alien lacquer and the little thrill
that he might, like God, show his face.
He’s the color of ruined wallpaper,

of cognac, and he’s closed,
pulled in as though he’ll never come out;
nothing shows but the plummy leather

of the legs, his claws resembling clusters
of diminutive raspberries.
They know he makes night

anytime he wants, so perhaps
he feels at the center of everything,
as they do. His age,

greater than that of anyone
around the table, in a room
from which they are excluded,

though they don’t mind,
since they can carry this perfect
building anywhere. They love

that he he might poke out
his old, old face, but doesn’t.
I think the children smell unopened,

like unlit candles, as they heft him
around the table, praise his secrecy,
holding to each adult face

his prayer,
the single word of the shell,
which is no.