The Secret Cup

Chip Spann enters, the vanguard, just ahead of Dennis Hock who is parking his own car just out in front of the bookstore. They've been working on making Dennis' new book, the first title from the Sutter Writers in 2007. Just 10 made--so far--and I'm flattered deeper, fuller than I can express that they think to come here first, the glue still setting on the spines. The Secret Cup: Poems of Grief and Healing.

I always like to approach a book from any direction but the front. I find this poem first:

January 6, 1956
by Dennis Hock

Mourners can't look at the children.
Most stare down at the ground,
a few gaze up at the headless vapor trail
of a jet climbing into the sun.

Nana pinches Hail Marys between her thumb and forefinger,
the sorrowful mysteries bloom like black roses on her silent lips
as the priest mumbles Latin against the hard morning air.

she is in that box --
they say she is looking down from heaven
but it took six men to carry it here --
she is in that box

Somewhere a plum wash of dawn sky
spreads over a dark plane of water.
But here it is all earth.

And then the spadeful.

And then the words are over, and the mourners
return to their cars, putting on dark glasses against
the sharp glint of windshields, and chrome bumpers.

As the father guides his four children from the grave
they feel their bodies pulling up
like birds backing higher into the sky,
their wings flapping away from the casket

buffed and silver
and gleaming like a huge bullet
embedded in the dark green turf.