NEWS
When I Left the House at Noon, a Poem by Nora Hutton Shepard
(Marguerite Williams photo)
a hell blazed sun roasted the town. Sky glare
so white it shrouded sound and sight,
forced a quiet down the sidewalks, cinched
the simmer of dead grasses, shuttered houses.
Last night’s storm-filled drains sluiced
the streets, floated earthworms out of their dirt
to the sidewalk pavement. Hardened worms
in shaped arabesques stuck to the concrete.
One worm, still alive, curled and writhed
itself into shapes like letters, its own
alphabet of agony. I stopped
and was witness to its turns and twists.
Like a politician or an indifferent god
I didn’t step on it. I didn’t help it either.