Buying Eggs at the Half Way House

The moon rolls onto the shoulder

Of the ridge, the December

Grasses, sheathed in frost,

Glisten like fiber optics, transmitting

The kinetic solar wind to be stored

By the dormant roots

Peter lives in a half

Way house with neat clapboards

And a brown board barn, where,

Retarded, he and the others

Carry on a road side trade in

Fresh eggs and painted bird

Houses, advertised on plywood signs

That bend when it rains

We first met Peter when

New friends from church

Helped us move and brought

Their nephew along.

I remember feeling ashamed

Not wanting him to grab

Boxes marked fragile

Whenever he sees us on the road

He yells outrageously, "hello,"

But he yells not to us as individuals,

Not for us as the remembered,

He yells the same at the attendant

Standing numbly byall day long

Once I saw him coasting

Down hill on a bicycle,

The spokes of the wheels

Chasing themselves around the hubs,

His arms rigid on the

Bars, and his face

Wrenched between ecstacy and fear

Another time I stopped for

Eggs and my knock brought

Him splashing toward the door,

Through the glass I watched

The attendant push him back,

His arms still flailing and clutching

I'd like to believe that Peter

Gathers the eggs we buy

From the hutches himself, the

Struggle must make his thick

Lips tremble, and the chords and

Tendons of his arm show as

He restrains his fingers,

I'd like to see those thin-shelled

Successes come to rest in the cartons

The June grasses grow

A green brighter than fire

Perennial, everywhere,

Between the ruts in the wood road,

From the cleft of a stone.

Jan Myskowski graduated from North Adams State College in 1987 where he majored in English. After receiving his law degree from William and Mary, Jan returned to North Adams where he has practiced law since 1992. Jan's poetry has also been published in the Recorder, a journal of the Alpha Chi national honor society.