The Over Child

Most days raging at long hair,
at bad grades, at the lawn
mowed by a loafer.

And then overtaken
by movies, quivering
grief for a yellow dog.

You never knew
which part of the child
to expect.

It was called getting sentimental,
folksy words
for crazy.

Cortez At Algoma

In a black robe, in a mackintosh and bowler,
in a suit tailored by Italians, Cortez stands on Superior.

Ice is new to him - his heels slip.
The stuck bull (his boots) pigeon toe
through snow. He will not tumble -
God does not fall.

This pantheist bluff worked before.
His beard and good timing
brought him to shore, a serpent.

Everyone is waiting for something.
They might as well wait for me.

Here they wait for Spring. And although he
is sunned brown, flecks of red in his hair,
Cortez is nothing like Spring.

White Pine galleons rigged with cattails
took to the lake at Wisconsin.
The fat bow flattened the marsh,
spilt the harvest, but mostly
kept going. North. Dark waves on the great lake.

The ocean inland sighs, knowing what comes next.

The Drought Farmer Questions
...................His Guidance Counselor's Advice

He might have given too much
had the crow at dawn not reminded
that saving a little for the next day
is how it's always been done.

He held back.
Held back when seeds withered
to let the real stuff out.
The sun clamped the sprout heads,
drawing matter into a bright vacuum.

He held back when letters came from the bank,
wanting to slug the mailman for saying,
"Can't be good news everyday, you know."
As if he made the news.

The envelope mined valleys between his calluses.
He left blood webs on the mortgager's pen.

This day was given for one more roll at good luck.
Horse-hair charms like Christmas ornaments
strung along fencing, swept curses from the air.
He hoped.

And he held back when the rains did not.
Too much necessity pooling
in serious knots along the furrows.

And again, when rain forgot what it was about
and settled in mist over jungle hills to the south,
letting earth become powder, he held back.

Beanstalks stayed mum about secret destinations.
Cloud bellies, just far enough from earth to be alien,
were the untouched goal, a target for ambition.

Two Thoughts on Unity

i.
At the peak of a mountainous high,
the flat earth is more than a theory:
it explains itself, a read page
that lies from night to day,
cold pole to cold pole,
below and around.

At its edge, the film of breath and life,
buildings in cities and trees in the forest,
all sentient and historical movement
waver like the bug screen
against an autumn window.

It is time to visit the lost mirage,
the water-bent air rises
in lines of cartoon stink above our heads.
We are left scratching wondrous lice.
Our blood shared across imagined borders.

It is time to divest in time, to let
the dice scatter and disregard the numbers.
It is time to bury the pedants, smoke the clichés
and move on to an unbound measure
that is neither deep nor wide.

ii
It was time that worried my teacher
when she dropped a B in R-A-B-B-I-T
and threw her speller at the class
because we laughed at the cursive
that would replace our stick scrawl.

When the door opened next
it was the principal who entered,
and remained with us while teacher recovered.
No one touched the prone speller,
and its pages bled on the checkered floor
in the margin between our desks.

Reflections

i.
She understands the weather
by the face on the pond
and has been waiting for rain
all summer, bringing the lawn furniture
inside, closing the windows to save
the sills from water stains,
only to drag the wicker chairs
back into the sun and slide the panes
open when the clouds fall
away from the parroted sky.

ii.
Arguing with her lover, she prefers
his anger deflected on the toaster, his eyes
bugging, the tight brow stretched,
wobbling in a funhouse mirror.
It makes him rage all the more that she
won't look at him. His cheeks get red
like element wires, and she smiles
in a way that brings the door to a slam
behind him.

iii.
The taillights of the Buick streak
in the puddles as he drives away.
His headlights click across the gapped birches
and night folds around the absence.
She stands on her porch listening
to the creaks and splashes of a forest
without sun, or a moon echoing its light.