Series: Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2011

Copper moon with hammered red ring,
halo of omens. Bird crest bloody

as a harpoon. Pinch back
the burgundy skin of hair-

covered fruit; then bite.
Tonight, news of rabid foxes

lurking at driveways’ ends.
High-pitched cackle from

the slaughtered hen.
How many stars by which

to reckon when the first
nor’easter blows in?

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Tonight, one of the older daughters comes to dinner and also to cry on my shoulder. The other one, sick with nausea, headaches, and cold sweats, takes her sister’s hands in her own too across the kitchen table. And then they bend their heads upon the braided place mats and sit like that a while, not saying much, but feeling. I’d always thought when I turned fifty I’d feel not older, not wearier, but wiser. But here I am, porous clay madonna watching this tableau, while outside, in late summer twilight, the air is clear and the sun buffs the edges of foliage at a low angle. If you look closely you might be astonished to see how many small insects drift back and forth across the trees. Sometimes I wonder if each one has a tiny parachute pack strapped to his back. Sometimes I wonder what it is they’re bailing out of or ziplining towards. And then the moon comes. And then all that soft indigo that goes on and on without end.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

A pair of goldfinches in the tall bull
thistle— only the female eats in silence.

Some people, entering a room, automatically turn on
the radio, the tv: almost as if afraid of silence.

I wish I had a porch or balcony where I could sit
until the noise of traffic dials down to silence.

Thrice now we’ve sighted a young night heron— clatter
of the dustbin lid behind the fence, then silence.

My friend texts me about the moon on his drive home:
I imagine the ribbon of coast, water liquid as silence.

Too many times like passing ships, at both ends of missed
opportunities. Why can’t we touch at the center, in silence?

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Try to tell the caterpillar that the white
marble column is not a tree.

Try to make the bee stop battering
the same spot on the window.

Try to ask the swamp to stop smoldering
after being struck by lightning.

Try to tell the blind man that a sheet
of leather hides no windows.

Try to tell the woman changing her husband’s
dressings he might not see this year’s first snow.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

I never thought it possible to fall
so many times, to startle like
a new blue pulse against

the rifts between—
I never knew how thin the milk
of absence or how the tunic

rubbed its velvet raw—
I never knew the hungry
hummingbird

could press its breast
(light, feathered)
to the metal flamingo—

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

“There are designs that seem like chaos
only because you’re too close.” ~ Dean Young

Move away from the lance-
tipped leaves, admire

the goldenrod shimmer
in the sun like green fish,

but from behind a glass window:
better yet, lower the blinds?

I know what you mean, and yet,
and yet— It’s been years

since a blade of grass
left its covert stroke

on my hand on the path
to home; since clotheslines

sang their load of moisture
on the line, since the plaster

saint with its chipped halo
and faded blue habit raised

its wooden hand in greeting
as I crossed the threshold.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Crepe myrtle clumps barely luminous in their sheen,
streaked jacaranda in the aftermath of rain—
Floss of cerise and magenta, ruffled anew in green

arms of trees. The air’s moist; this is how we know
change is coming. Tiny hairs on the nape, antennae
trembling. Stand in the driveway, listen: undertow,

swell of that wave furling. Autumn’s dark boat
has already pushed off. The turquoise sea is laced
with kelp and driftwood. Summer turns its coat

sleeves out, and makes a promise the way you do:
no vows, no witnesses but for a few letters
in the sand. But I row, you row; we both do.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Air flecked with blue and gold and green, one soft
grey strip of cloud against which a plane’s silhouette
moves toward a distant airfield. We’re all going

somewhere, aren’t we? Even if we’re huddled
in these rooms in rows of vinyl chairs, or later
packed three deep in an elevator car ascending

or descending through a windowless shaft.
Who could hear the faint hush of crickets
from inside this womb? Who could hear

the chant of cicadas or the rumbling in
the bowels of the earth? The woman pressed
against the wall has earrings in the shape of

coffee cups. All I can think of is you,
and where you are at this moment. The man
in the blue-and-white seersucker suit

presses buttons for all our floors:
nine, eight, seven, six; five,
four, three, two, one.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

In the hills, a chapel painted pink.
Pillars of marbled cream shot through
with faint markings of blue.

Around the clock, always a pair of nuns
prostrate before the altar. Here, intention
is a strip of paper penned by gnarled fingers

in the flickering half-dark, then fed
to the flame. Branches wrestle all night
with the wind, then sigh. A wren

perches on the rim of the rain gutter.
Even on backward knees, I wish I could hold
a hope as fixed and steadfast as that.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.