Dobyns, "Good Deeds"

Heart sits on a stump in the backyard,
dog turds, custed snow lie all around.
A window opens, a voice shouts: Come
on back, Heart! But Heart won’t budge.
You see, there is a dark place in the sky
despite the noon sun and lack of clouds
A spot above the oak branch on the right,
like a dark splatter of spilled black point.
If you stretched out your arm, your hand
could almost cover it. Heart can’t explain it.
It feels like sadness but why is there sadness?
Heart sleeps okay, eats okay, moves his bowels just right.
It feels like despair but why is there despair?
Heart has pals, no big bills, and the roof doesn’t leak.
As far as Heart can tell, life is going well.
The spot shimmers a bit and Heart thinks:
It’s showing me that it knows I am here.
He imagines the dark spot leaving its home
in the morning — can sadness be preexisting?
Could it fix like a tick on its victim’s neck?
But perhaps this is someone else’s sadness
and off on another street a gloomy stranger,
who feels often suicidal, feels okay today,
feels even optimistic. The oppressive weight
has not come back and he skips a few steps.
His sadness got lost, a not uncommon mistake.
Heart’s muscular good cheer reasserts itself.
Although I feel terrible, he thinks, I don’t really
feel terrible. I feel it for a stranger who today
gets a breather to let him rebuild a scrap of vigor.
Right now he feels down, but soon he’ll come ‘round.
Heart jumps from his stump.  The day has just
begun but already he has done his good deed.
He’ll eat a big breakfast, then make some calls.
In the evening may come a chance for Romancee.
The black spot begins to fade. Soon it will be only
a pimple on Heaven’s blue sky.  Wasn’t this inevitable?
The singing of formerly unheard birds becomes audible.


Stephen Dobyns

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