Series: Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2011

There’s that dark-suited convocation
gathered above our heads again, conveniently
screened by leaves: who hasn’t heard
rumors of their self-important agenda,
the steady nattering among themselves
as they deal, petal by pink petal, errant
and seemingly fatal destinies? Every
so often, humid missiles plummet
and find easy targets. Who knows
how many of them sit in session, sniping
from every rung on the tree of heaven?
Listen then: stay clear. Walk the long
way home. Or make a dash for it, head
bent low, gunning for the kill.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Here’s a cigar box, varnished square
decoupaged with magazine cutouts:

here’s the smell of the long untouched,
the spider trail of pale white asterisks

our hands disturbed, now scuttling
across the floorboards. Sepia sheets,

cursive handwriting. Oh how we want
to know there is some kind of secret,

frond sharpened once by a green
and desperate scent— some face

to fasten to our own, however late.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

All is gold and green in the garden now,
all humid earth beneath a profusion
of honeysuckle. The brass bell in the tree

is quieter than the foragers that come
tracing deliberate arcs through the foliage,
intent on water or sugar or seed. And I,

I want to sort through the inchoate
tumble of words I’ve written and erased,
erased and written again. My mouth

is heavy with salt, numb from wanting even
a drop of honey. And I want so much to tell you
but don’t know how: perhaps this is the only

way to go on: this never-ceasing work
of cobbling from what was given as loss, regret,
or sorrow: pushing it back into the soil, laying it

out in the sun. The coneflower stem breaks under
the goldfinch’s weight, but he moves to another,
probing the darkest center for a hint of seed.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Sometimes what changes is what makes
the landscape finally familiar, why it never
is becalmed for long: the way the air’s clarity—

stabbed with golden light and glistening
like new skin on the birches— can’t stay
that way. A blur’s already unlatching the frame.

I know this even as my friend turns to me
and says, But surely you deserve some
happiness too? I’m rueful, I know. In that

still life by the window, for instance: my eye
is drawn not to the table with the creamy damask
and the plain but heavy silver. It’s the ochre veins

streaked through the magnolias, it’s their ivory
skirts beginning to droop from the lip of the urn.
It’s the crayon line of fuzz that outlines the too-

soft peaches in the bowl; and beside them, it’s the fly
that’s drowned and gone to heaven in their honey.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

In the morning, the new sprouted leaves
of basil in the earthen pot have been chewed
to lace. I’m not sure how it happens, for I
never see the slugs, though I’ve read
of a woman’s account of how she
watched one for months while bedridden,
and could hear it chewing on a leaf
of celery. I wonder, why don’t they defend
themselves? The yellow roses have
their spurs. The broad leaves of comfrey
are mean enough to drop into a salve
or tincture. Even the hordes of wild
garlic heads aim their spears at a sky
that threatens another day of rain.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Heart grown gray, heart
tressed with care: tell me why
the bowl never seems to fill
though I’ve poured all the sweet
water I could find, countless trips
through the years— And winters,
I’ve cut off my hair and bartered
its gloss for coin to line it with broth
or glistening fat and the russet
of vegetables grown rich in the soil;
and in summer I’ve waited beneath
the trees to catch what gleanings might
thicken, of wood thrush or cardinal
song: but still you will not eat—

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

What might have been a heart
whose warm outlines were seared

in the clay— What might have
searched through dank underbrush

for a homing beacon, some fingerprint
flecked with gold— But for now you hear

only the naked blade of a voice, keening
among the brambles, rending its hair

and beating its breast in the fetid
air. Doesn’t it sing this way only

because it’s known the difference? Easier
to chide or scold, spurn it and say it reeks

of pure ungratefulness. Who’d want to marry it,
take it to sup at table, to warmth in the bed?

Wings like glass windows whose sections are soldered
cellophane, the yellow hoverfly courts the bloom

on the stalk. Remember it eats of brittle matter
long decayed; but also of pollen, nectar.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.