The More Modest the Definition of Heaven, the Oftener We’re There by Albert Goldbarth
[ID: The aforementioned poem as it appeared in the August 1986 issue of Poetry Magazine (online here). It reads:
“Years later they let him go. New evidence /
—somebody’s shoe and a letter, and then /
another man confessed. So along with the cheap gray suit /
and job ads that they all receive, he /
had a brief note of apology. I suppose some people /
go wild or bitter. But this is what happened to him: /
we’re sitting up way past midnight in August, /
the six of us, hoping for a breeze. The air /
might move in a solid block, as if pushed /
by a streetsweeper’s broom, but you couldn’t call it /
a breeze. Hot isn’t the word. The stars /
only make the sky a sore throat. And one of us, /
Sally maybe, says we must be dead because /
it’s hell for sure, and the rest of us laugh, but /
he’s been called far out of our little bent circle, /
you can tell by his eyes, they’re filled with the moon, /
with the simply delight of seeing the moon touch all of us /
all over without a bar in the way, /
without the shadow of even one bar /
to fall on the light like a nightstick.”
End of description.]
arcadiii