As ants go

As ants go

There’s something too deceitful in it, too
like Fido playing fetch, a rotor tail
of happiness. And back the stick comes through
a swamp or thornbush. Formicaries fail

from poison offered gift-like. Terrorism
that did not muss my hands. I set in motion
something biological, a chrism
to anoint their dead. I have this notion

then ignore it, so conveniently,
and kill them all. Are we the masters here
who build new tortures, new machinery
of chaos for another species? We’re

on sufferance. Sufferance. Who is left to try
defend us if another bids we die?

Metro

Metro

And he sat down on the edge of my jacket and looked
at me startled when I tugged it out, the drag
of the zipper odd under his khakied thigh.

And I looked up and his eyes were like does’ eyes
and his lashes spiked like burring jimson weed
seed pods if those could be beautiful.

And then I was the startled one and said sorry.
And he flinched away from my startlement.
And the Metro driver saved us by stopping

at the next stop and ordering us all out
of the train. And I did not think of him again
until now. And the burr of that fear clings to me.

And I wonder how I frightened him with me
and my middle aged dumpiness and he
young and likely able to destroy me with a fist.
And his eyes were brown.

Leaves

Leaves

I spent March single, spent a lot of time
in Target, wishing I had grabbed a cart
instead of one small basket. All the things
I ever buy there weigh too much. I spent
time poking at my Amazon account
or talking, sleepy, with Alexa just
to hear a voice that isn’t the odd cry
of my cross Wookiee cat. Now April comes
and I am in the nursery again,
observing shrubberies with practiced eyes
and impractical brain. April comes green
and with it comes my birthday and I think
is this the year I care I’m getting old?
Perhaps it is. Each day seems like a stone
I shake out from my shoe in pain, but when
each rattles out I am another day
closer to spending death single. The spring
is always flawed. The rot already there
behind the bloom, a cavity inside
the whitest tooth. But I am turning back
to compost. Hello garden. Hello dust.

Face

Face

I could only see the edges of his,
only something grey like a foam of vomit
that could have been a foam of vomit
between the heavy copse of dark-panted legs.
Passersby. No, that was my role passing,
they had stopped. I don’t know if he was dead.

I had stood an extra minute in the CVS, paid
an extra dime for the crinkling bag that swung
its handle thin and biting on my fingers, two too cold
colas in it, tearing through. But I was only
in there three minutes. No man was lying
still on the sidewalk when I went in, no quick forest
had sprung up around him like
a lesser Birnam yet. But now I could not see
the faces for the trees and I passed it all,
not turning my head and steering where I stared.

Only a block later remembering the studies
about crowds how they do nothing for the dying
but watch assuming someone else will fix it all.

Postseason

Postseason

When it’s your boys, when they are yours
you hope just for them to run off
the field with heads high. You hope
for nothing but the shininess of pride,
the quick gold glitter of no mistakes,
no Buckners standing cock-kneed and staring
and made the goat for a city. You hope
for something better for yours. You
cringe, afraid. These are not your glories.
And that is how you know that you
are meant to sit here in this chair,
your eyes shielded, your Achilles heels
tucked so firmly into your shoes.

Withal

Withal

The air is often softer here than there.
Here, lights expand like helium balloons,
each with its own fat cloud of silver air.

Here, the trees are unsure when to turn.
They ponder on it. There, they shrugged and left,
their spirits migratory. Unconcerned.

There, the water froze within your breath.
Here it rains down on you, softly still,
and still you wait and wait to become still.

Scorch

Scorch

When were we going
to call the guy in again

with his potional chemicals–
some sort of injection to save

the leaves? He said it
wouldn’t die and

he’s right so far. Not dead.
Maybe dying. There’s nothing but

the brown dapple of too-soon
fall. Nothing but the pretty

pied crispness of the leaves
shushing me as I clatter

out the door. I always clatter.
My heels always knock

on the door. It tries
to catch me fleeing. The gas

in the hydraulic closer hisses
like the cats who cluster

on the other side of it, their eyes
green like the leaves

should be but aren’t. Gold like
the leaves somewhat are.

Anxious that I might keep
going and the solid front door

never shut. It would never
block the pretty pinky-orange

girl cardinal who wants to break
the windows with her head.

With her beak the color of field
corn. Fierce as sunlight in August.

I heard the sudden suburbia
in my mind as I grabbed

the mail. Would a sickly tree
knock a thousand from the asking price
or more? How much more?

NaPo #30: Metro

Metro

And he sat down on the edge of my jacket,
then looked at me startled when I tugged it out,
the drag of the zipper odd under his khakied thigh.

And then I looked up and his eyes were like does’
and lashes like the edges of burring jimson weed
seed pods but beautiful instead of alien.

And then I was the startled one and said
sorry. And he flinched away from my startlement.
And the Metro driver saved us by stopping

at the next stop and ordering us all out
of the train. And I did not think of him again
until now. And the burr of that fear clings to me.

And I wonder how I frightened him with me
and my middle aged dumpiness and he
young and able to destroy me with a fist.
And his eyes were brown.

Surviving is Underrated