For three days running,the red lights tickedas I crossed the tracks,and no train be coming. Each day I slow a bit moreas if some switch were thrown,as if some premonitionovertakes the automatic, To permit the freightsa right of way.But perhaps the freightsrun perpendicularto the tracks there,below the bald humpof a weathered rise,down where deer boneswash […]
Some thought the world began as a wicker raft,woven by the hands of a god and cast adrift.And some think the law is the path of an orphanslave, abandoned to the Nile in a basket.And that basket there, on the end table,oxblood and tight weaved for a century,the carrier of keys and some coin,is born […]
Out,beyond the reflectionof yellow kitchen walls,the green couch and the black dognose prints, tulips and dayliliesbreak soil along the driveway.I not so much see as know. The first finch grips the strutof an empty feeder, and the chimeslament a minor tune. Certainly,robins gather winterfall andwarblers crest the gulf, and soon,perhaps, move on. But for now, […]
But for red weather, fearand pre-emptive measure,Spring must wait another year, For this enraged contagioncares little for the bloomthat compels us to meet again In the parks, in the gardencenters, sifting through annualsfor just the right shade of blue. Yes, Spring is closed this year,and all that gathers are flies,the hasty recoil of hands, And […]
Is it a greater mercyto pinch the injured waspbetween folds of two plyrather than let Bella, rousedin an ancient dance –paw and tap and bark and paw,committed to her brute dutyas guardian of the floorboards? Which is the lesser killing –quick death in the wrong abode, orthe slow denial of teeth and tongueprolonged in a […]
Then again next Summer –next wet, fat, loud Summer,I may find on a spider’s loom,the fly that tormented the windowall through Winter, Spring,released in the first airing –when mud and manurewafted like mutton, like cabbage,like all the bitter greens and old meatsthat stink a house lockedagainst the weathers. She’s the yellow of melons –all hunger […]
To stop someone from falling,you must fall faster than they.And while this may seema logical impasse, it is notwithout hope as once a globof heavy snow fell from the eavesat the moment I slippedon pack ice in the driveway. And in that brief acceleration,caught between certaintyand throbbing white pain –I saw splatter thusly averted,I heard […]
