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driving the thruway
back and forth
that time of year
when the twin samaras
spun and sun found
harbor in the leaves
she felt the light slip
the more she strove
°
days ricocheted
from loss to loss
she read
tidal stress : tremor :: swarm : quake
she read
Exxon Mobil plans to Triple Its Bet
on Hottest Shale Field in the U.S.
she drove and drove
she snapped at the small ones
in the back she bracketed
misgiving
she read
Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040
she was not speaking
to her neighbors
who’d razed the forest
next door for sport
she’d hoped for
equanimity
time
but there was only heat
°
re. space she wanted
nothing more
than a margin
undisturbed
re. time she wanted
never to accept it—
the trees succumbing
to storms with proper names
the grass succumbing
to polypropylene
she planted protests
but they were numbered
and the mayhem
was innumerable
°
she and I and you
and they and he
seeds
seeking
more than a life
in the wind
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O derelict earth wing
are you the fixer I’ve been
looking for? Gray sleep
and window pane,
greenhouse and lithophyte,
give up your ghost words.
Don’t duplicate mistake,
retain your stony
surface, stony structure.
Defend the palimpsest
that is your face
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Making coffee I’m thinking about the seventies,
about paleolithic emotion, and E. O. Wilson.
His love for Alabama, roll tide roll.
In last night’s rebroadcast of the Strongest Man,
the contestants were docile as the SoCal sun,
like giant purposeful babies in their onesies.
Toddling forward, they pulled trolleys filled
with squealing children, hoisted cages of women
waving, “the girl lift” it was called. We couldn’t
stop watching. The announcer strained to embrace Don
the winner, and Don hugged Lars, the favored runner-up.
How we cheered the golden juggernaut!
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Here she is again, old charity,
forgotten nearly, cutting back
the excess before frost.
I could tell you about her permanents
in the kitchen, malodor,
her arms against the nickel,
that she drove a Lincoln
with a blinker that raced
like a nervous pulse. Metallic blue
with robin’s egg interior,
like riding in a habit.
Daily I walk past
a scotch plaid lumpen mass
that rose once to a man: Give me
my compensation.
Give me my compensation.
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