The Poet Finds That Time, A Highly Volatile Construct to Begin With, Refuses to Adhere to the Order of Things and Slings Memories and Pronouns About like a Handful of Dry Beans
She's mucking in the pig shit of a claustrophobic
life she didn't know was small until some he told her.
Another he feeds a deer from the palm of her hand.
She slings a horseshoe; she wins or he lets her. She's
ten? He has built a barbeque, taller than himself,
from bricks. Woven wooden lath to break (yes, that
too) the wind. Plum tree branch and gravel to break
the fall. A little screened room (where the parakeet died).
Some quiet till the other she finds her. She can skate
on the four square concrete pads, can climb out her
bedroom window but will not, ever, not once. She's better
than good, afraid of not being. So. Daffodils in a straight
line, a hard yellow, Kumquats next door. And the dead girl.
There's only one incident with a hairbrush, with a hose, with
hands around her throat just once. Much later she visits a farm
in South Dakota, kills a dog with a Mustang, strokes with two
fingers a two-headed goat (nobody there's surprised) they say
will be dead by morning. Throw dead cows in for the pigs
to eat. Not throw. Drag with a tractor and rope. (No doubt
the goat.) She puts them all in the third person so she can
see: she doesn't want to remember, doesn't want to forget.
From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 184, no. 5, Sept. 2004. Used with permission.
life she didn't know was small until some he told her.
Another he feeds a deer from the palm of her hand.
She slings a horseshoe; she wins or he lets her. She's
ten? He has built a barbeque, taller than himself,
from bricks. Woven wooden lath to break (yes, that
too) the wind. Plum tree branch and gravel to break
the fall. A little screened room (where the parakeet died).
Some quiet till the other she finds her. She can skate
on the four square concrete pads, can climb out her
bedroom window but will not, ever, not once. She's better
than good, afraid of not being. So. Daffodils in a straight
line, a hard yellow, Kumquats next door. And the dead girl.
There's only one incident with a hairbrush, with a hose, with
hands around her throat just once. Much later she visits a farm
in South Dakota, kills a dog with a Mustang, strokes with two
fingers a two-headed goat (nobody there's surprised) they say
will be dead by morning. Throw dead cows in for the pigs
to eat. Not throw. Drag with a tractor and rope. (No doubt
the goat.) She puts them all in the third person so she can
see: she doesn't want to remember, doesn't want to forget.
From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 184, no. 5, Sept. 2004. Used with permission.
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