i.

 

My boy wakes from the one with the fanged skunk who eats

men, his white halo pasted to his creased face, wet

from the chase.  Earlier, they opened the cage door

but the grasshopper stayed.

 

 

We made our own reasons, wrote our own laws in a book

buried nobody knows where. Eating dirt.

Let the boat drift on black water. No oars. The way it seems

 

his father needs something antibacterial three days after drinking

from the thin creek that slides through yellow wheat.  Yes,

the color is simple. Up above, Aberdeens swing

 

swaying on their four sturdy Angus hooves each.

Such freighted charges; I can’t carry this anger any further.

 

Which wind bends over the blades whispering “grow”?

 

ii.

 

I have mine dress on, she says, twirling.

My boy wakes from the one with the Timpani of clouds.

 

Kind of pooky, those big drums, she says. Mell this, extending

the stem.  Agapanthus.

 

This is the concept of thunder, he says, agile in daylight

—the younger of brothers, pointing

to something he’s colored:  a yellow square. This.

Swimming back toward each other we are.

 

Nothing harder than putting an animal down. Nothing?

You can be the King of Kindness, I say. My

 

Where the grasses lie down at their feet.

Where the grasses lie down from their feet walking over.

 

This damselfly, soft pigment crush of blue iridescent oil.

Only then might we return.

 

 

 

 

The children prop the door

but the grasshopper stays.

 

How long they wait, their soft

aspirations misting

the mesh… we’ll see.  I spy

from my window

to note if anyone has moved.

 

I am the cage

they flew from not so long ago.

Not one of us breathes.

 

Then,

we’re breathing again.

 

The hopper, his green

assemblage of legs—poised.

His small soul already

risen?  This fragile husk…

 

He sits, more stilly for

being watched… unwavering.

 

Barking, a car alarm. The scent

of vanilla reaching my face

from behind

the tightly closed oven door.

 

When I look back

he’s gone. And the children

too,  scattering like beads

 

of mercury.

 

 

 

Tonight the needle grinds its way toward some central end

and in its wavering trail, a sound that swells

to fill the gap you feel.  Existential emptiness, eh?

 

Nipper, your tail thumping softly, head cocked, what do

you hear? Or, whom, I should say, though we know

the answer:  his master’s voice…

 

From where?  What patterns our minds?  We whirl

always counterclockwise, maybe, or… turn

to see his face before rushing out into it – the sea

 

or rain, or social fray.  I’m with you, pup.  Each day, in

fact, I find in unexpected minutes, my mind spins toward

the man—Oh, I’ll call! What would he make of this

 

ethereal Deco trumpet of glowing petals, this moon-

flower open before me, for instance, like the ear

or maw of Edison’s phonograph anchoring

 

you there… then stop with a start

to recall—he’s dead.  Gone away, wherever that is.

Sometimes I turn my head ever so slightly, late,

 

very late at night when he played solitaire chess

a continent away, and I think hard about him --  his

body, yes, ashes scattered across grass that surely

 

this Spring has begun to grow soft beneath

Monadnock’s snowy promontory… but his mind,

can’t not still be spinning within or far overhead, or

 

here in molecules all around me.  I’m dizzy

with him, can’t get off, still willing to let the cylinders roll

if it brings me closer to him.  We’re making sense

 

of absence, aren’t we?  You, back in a day of lathe dogs,

mandrels, and Carnauba.  And me? I’m listening

through something called “ear pods.”  Hush, my love.

 

 

 

Late March.

Like a

Thracian Mare,

my hen—

impregnated by

wind. Shell-

less, perhaps.

Small as

a walnut

or grape.

Not always

yokeless, but

often. The

“principle of

life” according

to Dr. Johnson,

not contained

within… Theories

debunked by

the late

E. Cobham

Brewer circa

1898; far

less satisfying,

his claim:

she is

simply fat.

a lion…

my hen,

her wattles

and comb

the brilliant

red of

these tulips,

their slender

green necks

sliced by

my very

sharp knife.

She may

not lay

but her

plumage rocks.