Field and Stream
The thing that you need to remember is that rubber insulates,
so step down on that electric fence with the sole of your boot
and let the current pass along into another field.
Streams are interrupted, cows with full udders arrive en masse,
one speckled head emerging from another speckled rump.
All the udders are full of milk.
When a black cat paws your face in the barn,
tries to climb into the bosom of your shirt,
imagine all the babies being born to all your friends,
babies who bear the names of poets, or old men, or geographical features.
When a calf is newly born its body is the summit of a pyramid,
four legs wobble, the four corners of the earth in lines.
The umbilical cord becomes a tender red S hanging out of the belly,
an incompleted television cable curling from your eaves.
We are all conductors and some conductors
are better than others.
Small lightning bolts flash as you walk across your carpet or rub
your balloon and each crackle or pop in the air is electricity trying very hard.
Minutes
a man mows my lawn
I have learned how to watch
the heft of his pick-up
departing buried in green
the arrow of wind understands
we need full moons more than flashlights
some moss Icelandic blue
my grandfather’s voice
when a tree moves it is like
light is pulling the branches
Playing Telephone
The salt shaker is the second thing,
the first a phone call with bad news.
Laughter is nothing like forgetting,
breath holding the body apart
like a cloud made of light.
Grace is too close to grease
for comfort, but we shake out our skirts
all the same, let the crumbs fall
where they may. It isn’t the end
which is so hard to bear.
It is the moment when your friend
calls to ask, is this the end?
Small yellow house for sale,
ability giving way to disaster.
The first thing is the saddest thing.
The second thing is the laugher.
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Image courtesy of NASA.
