Collected at Northern Solace.
The sun stays past supper,
Gold bike spokes rest on clovers
Gold porches
gold fences
One last-at-bat
"do I have to?"
Sprinklers tick tick
And clean
dusted knees.
Mower rows lie warm and sweet,
green sticks to socks
and bare,
wet feet.
By screen-door light
the moths soft-hard.
Night takes the yard.
Then I will dream
our baby girl
will see the beauty
like me
May is predictable.
I was born at the end.
April finds its way
to the basement
The wide pine
inching to plumb
aching back rain
and relieving shy sun
Laundry.
Another ring in the maple
for future fools
to count our history.
Uncovering shoots
have their way
penetrating aged
wet leaves
Flower to Blue
No more saint-talk
No more varnishing hymns
By June the bug-sluts of May
will plan parenthood
and uncle tom's fly swatter
batteries are charged
All over again.
When April softens the frozen leaves,
and breaks the hard, rime-fit of March,
through dog shit and the squirrel's cache;
when Adirondack wind hits maple tin
and finds the crocus near the road;
when the young sun marks the birth of my wife;
and starlings, crazed and packed in the gutter,
sing hungry in the dark mornings—
then the people start looking for eggs.
Jesus Christ.
They are hungry from fasting
and looking for Houdini,
with dirt on their foreheads
they rush into the backyard.