Poultry Parasite Check

-

POULTRY PARASITE CHECK


Flipped upside down they go 

the way of daylight's flutter, 

heat’s perennial scratch 


for provisions: still. Not the limp 

neck of submission but suspended 


quill, raindrop’s pause to swell

in its gleaning down the window-

sill, carpenter bee hovering

before the hole—bold quiet 


of gauntlet thrown, silent

bugle blown to the hand 

that grips the world like a chalice  

and upends it, parting the feathers: 


by all means, see if you can 

find the life you suspect

weathers the tumult, hidden here.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Line of Thinking

-
THE LINE OF THINKING The line of thinking runs  that given time enough—the funds— we might yet get in front of this.  That one day honey just does the list, and lo, the fixer-upper’s up and fixed,  the lawn at last trimmed low and all the laundry done, so give  it but a week or so and we'll at last begin to live the life we always imagined as something more than a growing list of pending repairs.  Of course, all this will come to pass only after the ballots are cast, the offices swept and emptied out  for our officials, who will, no doubt,  enact our will and set right the deluded line of thinking we’ve too long been governed by. Then once the baby sleeps through the night— or say instead the baby graduates and vacates the house—that will be our ticket to kick up our feet the way we've dreamed about and somehow come to expect, when we’ll rest as deep and long as Orion in repose, belt unclipped and bow leaned back in that ever-elusive posture of "rel...
Read more

the road behind the hill

-
the road behind the hill At 8:13, the solitary oak outside the kitchen window pulls down the sun with groping, fibrous fingers. Shadows stroke the stucco wall in stenciled lines, and on the counter, store-bought casserole is cold. His mother snores. He creaks the screened-in door to slide his bare feet over the concrete stoop in callous whispers. Outside, the evening air is soft as puppy’s breath. The grass is wet.        His mother’s face was wet the day his dad    had went away, wet Carolina sunset    streaks of red on cheeks that he had kissed.    John had moved in that year, a cheshire smile    from cheek to cheek that said “just call me dad,”    but whiskey fists can’t hide behind a smile.       Cicada song blankets his lilting stride across the lawn, his shuffle leaving strokes of green on cloth of dew...
Read more

Clean Windows

-
Clean Windows I hadn’t chalked it in my pocket planner— existential crisis: 8am— but plans, I’ve come to find, are quite  subservient to present things.  A pinch of pepper on my eggs,  some salt, and then does God exist?, as if I needed that to wash   it down, as if one has  to reason out this kind of thing before the second cup  of coffee. No, unwanted wondering  is not a trait I’m proud to keep sustained inside, but as it seems that we are at a tipping point of sorts, the point where cutting clean the canker kills the tree, I’ll learn  to coexist with it the best I can, if flustered at the circumstance. For sake of clarity, it’s most like opening the door to start your day when in comes clambering an addled bird to flip chaotically about your kitchen, forcing you to either kill it, hide behind the couch,  or simply let it flap about for long enough that it eventually wi...
Read more