What stays massed in the mind
are instructions: render the fat
reuse the tea; save, sure of the reason.

More than fear's nick, this was dread:
hardened, and solid as lard. Grudges
were holstered or held

to the light, the milkweed of them dispelled.
The sponge was wrung for its last.
We went together, washed and chagrined

to wait for the cans, contents unknown.
Intent and covetous, rent with twitches,
we opened them, lit by our hunger.

Complaints disappeared in our mouths.
We went together at midday, at dusk,
to seize the fuel, to seize the flour,

as some mother went weeping
against the wall

to seize the milk which was ours.


The Walk

When grass, like the back of an old dog,
gets matted and whorled, straw-brown,
and from erosion and winter rot
the pond reeds wag their feathered crowns,
it's then we remember who can't come home,
and how long they've been gone.

As we tuck sticks tightly into the fire,
and the smolder burns punk and kohl,
and we see flung handfuls of birds turn back,
quick, on a shimmered edge; it's then
we worry the dead will come back
to beds untended and wronged.

These fields of loss are stark,
with holes too cold for mice or snakes
and we walk on a mix of stalk and weed,
tugging our tumbril of known mistakes.
A bag of fog drags over the grass
its colors of bandage, milk, and remorse.


Contents

 Joan

 Houlihan