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Man in the Street
Man in the Street - Heather McHugh
Man in the Street
He claps a hand
across the gaping hole –
or else the sight might
well inside to
melt the mind (if any
thinking spoke
were in the wheel,
or any real
fright-fragments broke
out of the gorge to
soak the breast, the meaning
might incite a stroke – best
press against it, close
the clawhole, stand
in stupor, petrified. The dream
be damned, the deeps defied.
The hand’s to keep
the scream inside.
first published in The American Scholar Magazine 2006, © Heather McHugh 2006, used by permission of the author. Poetry Foundation recording made on 21 September 2007, New York