For Ruth Stone

Joseph Millar

Sometimes you say bad things about people

claiming it can't be helped

you crawl farther into the darkness

just to see what it feels like

but today you count the late frozen stars

and Jupiter drifting into the dawn

because Ruth the poet has passed away

who listened to the muse alone:

the mailman and the trash truck driver,

the women who work in Lost and Found,

their faded hair wispy as cotton gauze

in the discount store downtown.

They are folding a dark wool sweater

that smells of camphor and lighter fluid,

in one pocket a train ticket

from Roanoke to Syracuse.

The creaky hinge on the Ladies Room door

is silent now in the vacant station,

only a traveling woman asleep,

her suitcase tied with ribbons and twine

and snowflakes dusting the platform,

their stellar dendrites and crystal rosettes

flickering like signals from outer space

planetary and blind.