Mark Strand

The Dreadful Has Already Happened

by Mark Strand

The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly.

They moisten their lips with their tongues.
I can feel
them urging me on.
I hold the baby in the air.

Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun.


A small band is playing old fashioned marches.

My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot.

My father is kissing a woman who keeps waving
to somebody else.
There are palm trees.


The hills are spotted with orange flamboyants and tall
billowy clouds move beyond them.
"Go on, Boy,"
I hear somebody say, "Go on."
I keep wondering if it will rain.


The sky darkens.
There is thunder.

"Break his legs," says one of my aunts,
"Now give him a kiss."
I do what I'm told.

The trees bend in the bleak tropical wind.


The baby did not scream, but I remember that sigh
when I reached inside for his tiny lungs and shook them
out in the air for the flies.
The relatives cheered.

It was about that time I gave up.


Now, when I answer the phone, his lips
are in the receiver; when I sleep, his hair is gathered
around a familiar face on the pillow; wherever I search
I find his feet.
He is what is left of my life.