Across the country, between two ocean shore lines, where cities cling to rail and water routes, there people and horses stop in their foot tracks, cars and wagons stop in their wheel tracks-- faces at street crossings shine with a silence of eggs laid in a row on a pantry shelf-- among the ways and paths of the flow of the Republic faces come to a standstill, sixty clockticks count-- in the name of the Boy, in the name of the Republic. (A million faces a thousand miles from Pennsylvania Avenue stay frozen with a look, a clocktick, a moment-- skeleton riders on skeleton horses--the nickering high horse laugh, the whinny and the howl up Pennsylvania Avenue: who? why? where?) (So people far from the asphalt footing of Pennsylvania Avenue look, wonder, mumble--the riding white-jaw phantoms ride hi-eeee, hi-eeee, hi-yi, hi-yi, hi-eeee-- the proclamations of the honorable orators mix with the top-sergeants whistling the roll call.) If when the clockticks counted sixty, when the heartbeats of the Republic came to a stop for a minute, if the Boy had happened to sit up, happening to sit up as Lazarus sat up, in the story, then the first shivering language to drip off his mouth might have come as, "Thank God," or "Am I dreaming?" or "What the hell" or "When do we eat?" or "Kill 'em, kill 'em, the...." or "Was that ... a rat ... ran over my face?" or "For Christ's sake, gimme water, gimme water," or "Blub blub, bloo bloo...." or any bubbles of shell shock gibberish from the gashes of No Man's Land. Maybe some buddy knows, some sister, mother, sweetheart, maybe some girl who sat with him once when a two-horn silver moon slid on the peak of a house-roof gable, and promises lived in the air of the night, when the air was filled with promises, when any little slip-shoe lovey could pick a promise out of the air. "Feed it to 'em, they lap it up, bull ... bull ... bull," Said a movie news reel camera man, Said a Washington newspaper correspondent, Said a baggage handler lugging a trunk, Said a two-a-day vaudeville juggler, Said a hanky-pank selling jumping-jacks. "Hokum--they lap it up," said the bunch. And a tall scar-face ball player, Played out as a ball player, Made a speech of his own for the hero boy, Sent an earful of his own to the dead buck private: "It's all safe now, buddy, Safe when you say yes, Safe for the yes-men." He was a tall scar-face battler With his face in a newspaper Reading want ads, reading jokes, Reading love, murder, politics, Jumping from jokes back to the want ads, Reading the want ads first and last, The letters of the word JOB, "J-O-B," Burnt like a shot of bootleg booze In the bones of his head-- In the wish of his scar-face eyes.