Shadow Hand

Duporte the roofer that calm voice those sure hands gentling weathered tiles into new generations or half of him rising through a roof like some sea spirit from a wave to turn shaped slates into fish scales that would swim in the rain Duporte who seemed to smooth arguments by listening and whom they sent for when a bone was broken or when they had a pig to kill because of the way he did it only yesterday after all these years I learned that he had suddenly gone blind while still in his sixties and died soon after that while I was away and I never knew and it seemed as though it had just happened and it had not been long since we stood in the road talking about owls nesting in chimneys in the dark in empty houses From 'The Shadow Of Sirius' Publisher: Copper Canyon Press (September 1, 2008)