A half-grown groundhog —
“Wait while I get the camera,” I say,
& it does.
Recognized by its glide,
the first monarch butterfly
back from the south.
In the air-conditioned mall,
the plastic flowers are safe
from the blistering heat.
Drinking from a tap
in the base of an old elm,
a Penn State squirrel.
I run into someone
I first met 17 years ago,
in cicada time.
So good, I don’t want to finish it:
The doors swing
both ways; be careful.
From either side,
the other looks like out.
This mystery your body
is like a Klein bottle,
all surface, no way in.
From the inevitably
flawed models, it appears
to intersect itself:
it dwells within the without.
That’s why the wind —
or is it breath? — can’t
be held, & you need
a fourth dimension
to lose those edges
To enter fully into another’s words
is to leave your own fixed residence,
part coffin, part cocoon.
The walls fall away.
Letters the color of night
swell with sirens & the call
of the whip-poor-will.
Out in the open book,
anything can happen except sleep.
Dreams may be redeemed
for a small deposit.
This is why, in the public library,
everyone is homeless.
first clear day in weeks
butterflies walk slowly over
the dry forest floor
interrupted ferns’
delicate tips are still clenched
against the cold
in the cold wind
a gnat clings to a bobbing
pink lady’s-slipper
tent caterpillars
the vernal pond quakes under
a coat of leaf-pieces
oak apple gall
I bend down for a closer look
such a fresh green globe
The caterpillar tents start appearing
just as the leaves burst their buds,
as if someone with a white marker
were doodling in every crotch of limbs.
My dad goes into the hospital to have
a large, non-malignant tumor
removed from his lower spine,
& I picture a white knot swelling
with caterpillars of pain.
A day after the surgery he’s taking
his first steps without it, this thing
that has made almost every position
of repose impossible for weeks,
forcing him to stand or to walk
slowly for hours each day.
Now it has been thoroughly cast out
Brass doorknocker
for a house without a door
downward dog
always on point over the same
obvious quarry
flightless rocket
leaded with failure
pendulum made
to mark eternity
one still moment at a time.
Autumn in April:
leaves drift down from a beech tree,
maples are red again.
A millipede is climbing
the bathroom wall
next to the toothbrushes.
Three red-tailed hawks
dive-bomb each other
in the unseasonable heat.
The hugely pregnant
feral cat stares balefully
from behind the hyacinths.
The sprouted millet
still shows a little yellow;
goldfinches, a little green.
When the rain subsides,
This hatchet hasn’t bitten
through a neck in twenty years.
When we raised poultry,
it was in weekly use,
& also had regular dates
with the bench grinder:
a grating hiss, & a bright
new smile would open
in century-old rust.
The back of the head flares
into a hammer,
lending heft & balance
to this almost-cross
& making it easy to hang
from a pair of nails.
In a museum in Pittsburgh
Out for a walk before breakfast, I quickly miss my hat. The sky is clear, & as the light increases, the leaf color in the understory grows more & more distinct. Whenever I pause, the clouds from my breath rise straight up. It’s as if I’m sending smoke signals – but what is the message?
Eohippus of the truck family,
divergent offspring
of wheelbarrows,
what led the hand truck
to stand on its head
& press its nose to the ground?
What could it possibly
have learned from the worm
& the tons of dirt
that pass through
a worm’s stomach?
How to let fall, perhaps,
boneless as hope.
How to take its time.
Stack truck,
sack truck,
Better than all power tools
is the socket wrench:
its accommodating nature
its chrome-plated steel
its handling of torque.
It can make a complete revolution
from the smallest arc
& as if time could turn
in either direction
with the click of a lever
the past screwed down
the future loose
a spring-loaded finger
clicks against
the gearwheel’s teeth.
while sparrows & kinglets
while jays
while aerodynamic oak leaves
I sat inside with
a silence well past the age
when it could ever get pregnant
mouse nests in the furnace
were converted to ash & heat
a silence that sounded
very much like static
white-throated
ruby-crowned
blue