Anthropology

Remember the night you got drunk

and shot the roses?

You were a perfect stranger, Father,

even my bad sister cried.

Some other gravity,

not death or luck,

drew fish out of the sea

and started them panting.

The fish became a man.

The archer’s bow became a violin.

I remember the night you searched the sofa

for change

and wept on the telephone.

Some other gravity,

not time or entropy,

pulled the knife down for centuries.

The archers dropped their bows,

harmless as pine needles in the snow.

The knife became a plow

and entered the earth, Father.

Later it became a boat

and some other things —

It isn’t a dream but it takes a long time,

for the archer’s bow to become a violin.

Copyright Credit: James Galvin, “Anthropology” from Resurrection Update: Collected Poems 1975-1997. Copyright © 1997 by James Galvin. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.

Source: Resurrection Update (Copper Canyon Press, 1997)