Proof of Life

Those small cuts and infections on my hands from splinters and thorns
that show I have been working out of doors this week. 

The maddening peculiar purgatory
of Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band playing “Against the Wind”

continuously for three days inside my head,
until on the fourth day it finally stops. 

The sound of clothes going around in the dryer
at the other end of the house. 

Wanting from a very young age
not to be a zombie sleepwalking through time. 

Leaving people, and being left by them.
This catch-and-release version of life. 

The kidnappers send out a photograph of the hostage, grimacing,
holding up a newspaper from yesterday.

They call this “proof of life.” 
It means the captive is still alive. 

The day is blue with one high white cloud
like a pilgrim going to Canterbury. 

There is a bird half-hidden in the shrub outside.
Something he has eaten has made his chest feathers red.

Tony Hoagland, “Proof of Life” from Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God. Copyright © 2018 by Tony Hoagland. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC, on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minn., graywolfpress.org.