To
a Fossil
Olduvai
Gorge, Tanzania, 1959
Hide and seek,
a run under palm frond canopies.
After someone like me must have drowsed
on jackal pelts, you rank with sweat,
steaming, four arms, four legs tangled,
listening in the yellow-eyed dark
for the crackle of a step from the streambed
where rivercresses grow.
You slept away millennia
in sediment with hare and fish and bird,
once carrion of the hawk
circling above. Even now
he eyes the rifted gorge. Spies your
jaw.
You, blood to stone to hand, my hand
that pulls you from the hot earth,
speechless.
from Summer
Hunger, 2010, Tebot Bach Press
vii.
(from the St. Louis Suite)
Wild white,
staccato black
Julia’s bobolink stacks hyperbolas
in the air over tallgrass prairie,
flashes melody mid-flight,
something like granddad’s
light love talk, his flashing
eyes, dark, sharp, the smooth
song, the pipesmoke circles
he blew in her eyes
until they bedded in the grass
– and always the bobolink’s
clink-clink, his metallic chirp
in sedge, in cattail,
his molt and skulk in marsh.
She did the wash, hung up sheets,
waited the terrible wait –
Will he migrate south?
No more on quiver-wing
singing, wooing in red clover.
He was like that once.
from
St. Louis Suite, Finishing Line Press, 2010
AS SEEN IN A HAMMACHER SCHLEMMER CATALOGUE:
The Hands Free Soap Dispenser
allows you to apply
liquid
to any part of your
or someone else’s
body say a thigh
or
without having to touch
someone else’s nevermind
no pumps no handles
(to prevent cross-contamination)
unless you wildly desire
cross-contamination be advised:
an infrared sensor
detects the proximity of
your or your loved one’s
parts
& the dispenser has
a ½ second delay to insure
proper placement
under the nozzle
you can regulate the speed
at which liquid is released
from your or his or the dispenser’s
stainless steel body
& all this can be done
on a countertop or mounted on a wall
whichever way you like it
hardware
included
From User'
Guide, Frontline Press
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