devra

Sunday’s rainstorm fed the marsh with box elder flowers and papery samaras; the whirlybirds and pollen float like a verdant oil slick across the shallow water.

We stroll past, hoping to spot a foal along the wooded embankment. Hearing a quickfire rustle -- like tavern matches clumsily struck

on their paper book -- we stop In the shade to look. We crane our necks over wild raspberry bushes, their thorns clawing at the loose threads in our polyester shorts.

Standing under the oak, its heavy leaves point at the pavement, hanging over our heads like a thousand serrated knives.

We see nothing but the burst sheath of a cattail: downy seeds trembling in the wind, gripping the bending reed.

Each red-breasted robin, bouncing on honey-hued feet that flick open and shut like coin-purse latches, retreats north, at least in some way: flying from Texas over barren tea-colored barley fields, or simply flitting into a juniper bush to take cover from the breeze or a beleaguered pedestrian. We inch ahead like worms, with eyes on the pavement, our ears blushing like hawthorn berries in the wind. The robins continue to berate one another in a sonorous spat: a domestic quarrel sung in soprano. And what if our wintry disputes were transcribed, our words hummed or hammered on piano strings? Would their cadence resolve, or hang in midair, half-diminished? I wonder if, like I’ve dreamed, the notes would swirl insistently, in perpetuity, like a starling murmuration, each opalescent black body a pinprick point in a shapeshifting cloud that shades the twilight sky. On the frostburnt grass, the robins mutter and hop with impatience, eager to feast, waiting for us to pass.

Around lunch time, Post Office Square begrudgingly hosts A broken line of porters, Trudging ants In winter caps and tracksuit pants, Pushing plastic carts full of:

Pizza Pasta Little square-cut sandwiches Plastic wrapped tupperware containers full of Italian dressing Dense trapezoids of unripe honeydew melon destined for the back of an office refrigerator Brownies Paper napkins Coffee Teeny tiny flimsy thimbles of creamer Hundreds of wooden swizzle sticks, some broken, papery splinters poking sideways

Short men with thick legs, A thousand shades of brown between them, Weave through foot traffic And navigate the decorative brick masonry Half-buried in the sidewalk, Upended by an endless procession Of patent leather high heels.

The cart’s wheels swing wildly, Like old flags suspended in a gale, And raise a children’s chorus of Morse code taps That echo dully through the narrow glass canyons.

Marble eaves and granite soffits Stare down their hardened noses At the faint racket beneath them, Perturbed, but unmoved, Adjudicating in silence.

sidewalk scene

Drawn in On invisible strings I orbit you. The soft curve Of your belly Mirrors the horizon Over which A distant sun Warms us.

We glide across A dark sheet Of midnight ice, Circling one another In silent arcs. Your gravity Leads me around, Again and again, Our transit unmarred By the sharp angles And rough skin Of time.

You are My planet And I’m Your little moon. I spin, Unencumbered by air, Returning each time To face you: Humble, small And illuminated By the stars.

“Resisted, Satan retreats, and, with the venom of Milton’s archangel, poisons and lacerates himself…”

-- Josiah B. Grinnell

On Sunday morning, when the town had gathered under the warped roof -- green lumber boards, sawed by a horse-powered mill, housing vagrants and flour sacks, the slats bent and bowed like the round carapace of a prairie schooner -- of the city’s tavern (also its hospital, and hotel, and blacksmith, and stable: false shelter from autumn rain), Josiah discovered a rattlesnake coiled in the corner; prodding it with a stick, he found that it was blind, striking wildly, its buzzing tail clashing with the tintinnabulation of the church bells; boot heels struck the floor like cast iron slag and the small, yellow snake -- rigid as formica, on tenterhooks -- bit itself, the wounds quickly swelling, rising like bread dough in a wooden bowl; the people dispatched it and left its body, still waving, perhaps until after sundown, in the dusty street, the August heat.

Often I grow weary, Often I am calm, It’s often that I long for you, And often that you’re gone.

Often isn’t oft enough, So often do I ponder How often is your mind at ease, How often does it wander?

Do you often think of me As I oft think of you? Held aloft, your bright light softens And dulls the darker hues.

I often wish that you were near, And not some other place, I often sense you so far off And fear the empty space.

Often I am saddened And humbled by the dawn. It’s often that I dream you’re here, And often that I’m wrong.

The room breathes a bit Through its sunshade gills, The closet door agape Like a mounted bass mouth, The wire shelves like rows Of thin, ragged teeth.

The afternoon light filters through The watertight plexiglass And into our unblinking eyes, Skittering across bowls of loose change And jewelry boxes And pictures frames: The stray scales from a cleaned filet.

We lie gasping, side by side, Crying in silence, Wrapped in blankets Like sheets of parchment paper. The grey hairs on your temple Shimmer like broken mussel shells Scattered amongst stones.

We peer out of our fish tank And onto the currents Of the afternoon commute: The moon pulls forth a tide Of compact cars and minivans Through the suburban jetty, Our water undisturbed but for the hum Of a submersible pump Churning fine bubbles, Leaving us clean and alone.

The pavement softens And winter’s potholes Sag and gurgle Like a bulldog’s jowls.

Babies in strollers Or strapped to chests Somehow never cry, Yet whine like hinges.

On the mealy grass, Dandelions shed their wool And line up, baldheaded.

Everything sweats, Everything loses something: Mowers howl and spit, Air conditioners drip and wheeze, And bottles crackle in the heat.

She was born in the year of the ox. The air whistled through her olive-shaped nostrils In big passes, furrowing the sweat On her upper lip and freckled chest.

She hauled boxes of tile up three flights And tore asbestos from behind old drywall In huge cotton candy strips.

I once watched her lift a refrigerator Off the floor, mounting it on her massive hips, And, swinging it clockwise like a teamster with breasts, Drop it with a glottal thud on the linoleum.

She paddled through museums and lifted my gaze to: Calder’s soft, flat baubles, swaying suspended; The technicolor astigmatism of Monet’s haystacks; Rothko’s muddy color squares, yawning like open closet doors.

She kept her gold and silver in a box And sang Aretha Franklin songs loudly and out of key And read murder mysteries backwards at night. She dyed her greying hair a shocking blonde And lifted her eyelids to slow their drooping over her lashes.

I recall her teaching me to use a chainsaw To hack down a rotting branch above our gravel lot. She painted the house York Harbor Yellow And never spoke her middle name aloud. She died in the winter, bald as a skinned hare.

When I was twelve, I split open my chin on the sidewalk. Eschewing the emergency room, she piped liquid stitches Into the bloody gap and squeezed while I lay wriggling on my bed.

I watched her face sour once she finished. She cried a bit behind her tortoiseshell frames, Saying I’d have a scar forever.

“I was underneath one of them while the two laughed,” Ford replied. “Two friends having a really good time with one another.”

A leg

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Gentle grasshopper phalanx bent upright, mullioned and unset amongst rippling cushions and velveteen skinsweat.

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Lips

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Freeze-dried peach slices, half-halos laid sidelong in a neat row, pursed and pale, bloodless, unbeckoning.

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Three hands [open], one fist [between trapdoor slices of yellowing foam], four bare feet [the unclothed majority]

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Chamomile buds gently nodding with the wind’s kind breath, perfuming the short spring grass, observing the judge presiding, the lacquered gavel, the corduroy couch’s athletic pose.

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An arm [beneath the scrum]

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Hot cast iron searing the lukewarm twilight, pinned under chipped china and ten thousand morning afters.

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Two castaway socks, thin hair, a sternum

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Cedar ash scattered in neat bird’s nest piles, collecting the caramel-colored laughter floating down, slow and convivial.

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Another leg [retreating], a belt, a shoe

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A staircase

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A door

The salted road Rescinds forgiveness

And gnaws aluminum With termite jaws.

The barren lakefront: Like the hollow scrape

Of a cassowary nest Amongst brittle leaves.

The ashen asphalt -- A ramekin’s matte belly

Or photo negative Of the sky’s chasm --

Relays its message In teletype text:

Misremember the seasons. Winter trails summer

And binds cat tails In coffin ice.

You will not bereave Their tender stems,

Their velvet shoots, Their tangled roots.

The water sighs, Gelded and unbound,

Steaming the horizon, Appentent for the sun,

For its warmth And for its dawn.