War Dances

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What are you going to do?”

I didn’t do anything.

I turned right on the green.

He turned left against traffic.

I don’t know what happened

To that man or the dog,

But I drove home

And wrote this poem.

Why do poets think

They can change the world?

The only life I can save

Is my own.

BACK IN COLLEGE, WHEN I was first LEARNING how to edit film — how to construct a scene — my professor, Mr. Baron, said to me, “You don’t have to show people using a door to walk into a room. If people are already in the room, the audience will understand that they didn’t crawl through a window or drop from the ceiling or just materialize. The audience understands that a door has been used — the eyes and mind will make the connection — so you can just skip the door.”

Mr. Baron, a full-time visual aid, skipped as he said, “Skip the door.” And I laughed, not knowing that I would always remember his bit of teaching, though of course, when I tell the story now, I turn my emotive professor into the scene-eating lead of a Broadway musical.

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