Cross Ties

Out walking ties left over from a track

Where nothing travels now but rust and grass,

I could take stock in something that would pass

Bearing down Hell-bent from behind my back:

A thing to sidestep or go down before,

Far off, indifferent as that curfew's wail

The evening wind flings like a sack of mail

Or close up as the moon whose headbeam stirs

A flock of cloud to make tracks. Down to strafe

Bristle-backed grass a hawk falls—there's a screech

Of steel wrenched taut till severed. Out of reach

Or else beneath desiring, I go safe,

Walk on, tensed for a leap, unreconciled

To a dark void all kindness.

                                           When I spill

The salt I throw the Devil some and, still,

I let them sprinkle water on my child.

X.J. Kennedy

From Cross Ties: Selected Poems (University of Georgia
Press, 1985), copyright (c) 1985 by X. J. Kennedy.
For permission to reprint, transmit by internet, or for
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