RICK LYON
Jimmy
He 'd always have a bag of bread for the ducks and swans,
which eventually made a point of paying a visit,
gangs of them , once their babies had hatched.
Feeding the ducks helped to pass the time
between shuttling people back and forth on the ferry -
boring work, but he was out on the water with the ducks and boats
and little to bother him ,
and the job was hardly more tedious than l11anaging a gas station,
wh ich he did , weekends.
Living with his parents, mid-thirties, a boxer once,
he wasn't going anywhere, but wasn't a problem, anyway.
Then his dad died and he started talking a little crazy -
the death, drug usc, maybe both -
quit the job, and was soon dodging the cops.
You'd wonder whether someone might half wi sh insanity on himself,
to make it real ,
acting crazy and evil as if to eliminate all doubt ,
because , next thing , at knife point , he ' d tried to drag a girl into
the woods,
she'd broken free, and he 's now found a new home for a long while.
His story's less grim than what happened last winter
when a trooper wa lked up to a van, beside the highway,
two minutes too bte to save the woman.
But the ugly things won ' t prove less so .
The swans lI10ve as if nothing can harm them ,
turning away, proud , and not to be touched.
JEFFREY HARRISON
The Ganges at Benarcs
On the stone steps leading down to the river
a gauntlet of crippled, wailing beggars,
flailing rope- veined arms like cili a
along a microorganism's gu llet,
disgorges a strealll of pilgri
illS
and tourists
onto the next tier. Already the red sun
