What mother doesn’t say
Conform to a contour of sky, allow to cool, pronounce a name,
given thus – a fool in paradise. A purposeful fit found by inches,
by words. Some might say, doubtful grace.
Holding sentiment kin to heart. So slight then the word frayed
by ambling hooves as can render sight by such applied discord,
cast like granite – trembling.
Doors were never locked when the grass was first short.
Then I remember quiet private words above my head (not
a child’s choice). There are strangers in town.
Nothing same after that.
I.
Here, take this poem, bury it in the dirt. Tell no one.
Forget where, yourself.
There it can welcome wet threads and grow long whiskers
and someday feed the world again. One word by one word.
Just the way it all began. You might call it, rain.
II.
What matters, a mineral tongue given free vein, is that
eventually everything, every motion, every sigh, buttons
in hand, undraped torso set loose on the wildness, and
all, all she does becomes fascination’s plum.
I’ll steal anything to see her that way. Even this!
(Did you think it was mine to own?)
How oft has even the moon been so stolen, pocketed?
And each morning, there it is, fading to dawn.
neil reid © october 2010
Bury this poem in the dirt. Good wisdom here I suspect. Not meaning disregard, but just good farming sense. And “drafty” by either count.
