Cubit
Erica liked going into the
spare room in late August
because there was a window
there that opened all the way
and the sound of the aphids
reached her at that time of year
and overwhelmed her with its
indifferent seriousness. She
always brought with her a yogurt
drink, as though the bitter taste of strawberries
communicated directly with the
aphids and she brought a pencil and
sketchbook but only to make a
few simple lines. Anything more
risked undermining that banquet
of the senses inevitably in store for
her in that lumber of a spare
room, in that warehouse of storage stored
with snoring objects.
The full-throated cry of
the aphids, the assertion of the
owl, the strong elbow of the bear,
and the romping of the deer over
mossy pine needles, she said,
only confirms what I long suspected,
that in this spare room, at least
once a year, I can have exactly
what I want: sanction, until I hear the sound
of mother and father calling me saying
it’s time to walk our agreeable dog.
Uprooting
The heart lends itself perversely
to uprooting, after rain.
Tug and it all comes out too easily:
milkweed, goldenrod, blackberry bramble
seem to leap out and die in brown stacks.
Tacitus implies the like of disease in a civil body
which heals so slowly it may as well be uprooted,
and Latin is rich in euphemisms for kill.
Among them is uprooting,
my uprooting after rain.
