like a bloodshot eye
with a black pupil
crab-walking across my knee
a blacklegged tick
oh lovely horror
i take three photos
then decapitate
with a persistent thumbnail
the meek are inheriting the earth
with increasing speed
last night i came home
to an old cocoon
from one of the giant silkworms
lying on my doorstep
fabricated from a single leaf
like a dolma tied with silk
long since vacated
and weathered to old gold
and now the wind has taken
some interest in it
this empty shroud
that gave birth to wings
and to think i almost didn’t
crouch down to look
where does it come from
this disinclination
to get down close
and attend to the details
where the devil is said to dwell
among the flies
forefeet coming together
like prayerful hands
that’s what will finish us off
the piety of carrion-lovers
i tell a clump of sagging puffballs
on a stump beside the trail
their blunderbusses pointed
up down and sideways
i give one a tap
the smallest gray cloud of spores
spurts out and rides
off on the wind
Plummer’s Hollow, February 9, 2024