More deeply moving than
people with an eye to their later existence as ruins

attentive silence of the children's brothy in the garden
after a man with mallows has

passed through them
in this strange atmosphere

fully furred
with undeveloped humps

bactrian camels
are born with their eyes open

in which is found very real, immediate
eternal life.

All the Happiness of Arabia

Sky is a thing full of water
everything balanced

on a few drops poured over a tuft of grass
when it begins to move like starfish

shivering in the desert
elephants still standing after death

the return of the sun is astronomical
a kind of landscape head

feeding on a seal
the red stomach of a swimming bell

hides the flashy contents of ingested prey
I blow over the surface and make sea.

Side Trip

You have eternity
to say good-bye

dishes of radio telescopes in heaven
magical clouds of DDT

held above the skin
like a blue-handled breast set

the death of the skin
nostrils swarmed by bees

searching for a nest
entrance, spavened

hands, phossy jaws
dark orange toes.

Kathy Nilsson is married, has a son, and lives in Maine.  

  Kathy   Nilsson