By the Rivers of Babylon by Todd Davis

 

The father of a boy my son plays basketball with

overdosed last week.  Out of prison less than two days, he slid

the needle into that place where he wanted to feel something

like God and pushed the plunger of the syringe.  The boy isn’t any good

at sports, but when the coach subs him late in the game, score

already settled, we cheer wildly, as if he’s performed a miracle,

when he makes a layup or snares a rebound.  Heroin is sold

in narrow spaces between row houses in the first few blocks

that rise from the railroad tracks and train shops.  This part of town

still looks like the 1950s, if the soft pastels of that decade

had crumbled to gravel and ash.  The boy lives with his grandmother

in a curtained white house near the cathedral.  His mother,

who lost custody when he was five, is back in jail for possession.

At the funeral, my son and his friends pat the boy on the shoulder,

mumble they’re sorry after the mass, then usher him to the pizza shop

where they eat as many slices as their stomachs will hold.

In Pennsylvania, if you keep your eyes on the horizon,

the mountains look heavenly.  The white lines that snake

through the gaps in winter become streams that hold

the most delicate fish. As the snowpack melts,

there’s more water than we know what to do with,

all of it rushing toward the valley and the muddy river

whose banks keep washing away.

 

 

—Todd Davis

 

Originally published in Winterkill (Michigan State University Press, 2016)