Found in Willow Springs 66
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After months
the raccoon family finds
a loose hem of chicken wire.
Grey brindled steel
wool, sticky viscera.
Already
somewhere within
my daughter
eggs that may become
grandchildren
tick.
One handy trick
is to use salt.
Everything is personal.
How clean and soft beneith
my stroking hand, how quiet
and still the two left
are--as if practicing
for death. Once upon a time,
one at a time
each of these urchins
curled within me. Three
times over I've been a woman
with two hearts.
Wings wands stars tulle
ribbons capes sequins. All flash
All flash and approximation. Tricky
hands; thick skin.
And windows
cannot necessarily keep out
what the wind throws
against them.
Two laps
round the vineyards
make for sleepy kids. I hold
close as before
I wake they will have
flown.
Hierarchies of all--clouds,
cats, dreams, vintages,
hues. O, miracle of feathers!
Barred Rock silver
and jet. Ticked orange. White
Leghorns--tufts caught
where they shouldn't be
in high holes.
One trick is to use tonic.
One trick is to use sand. O fleet
of foot. O, fine as dew evaporating.
Pale brown shells,
pink.
Q: "How big is the egg I was?"
A: "Vast as wind you were
named for and equally
invisible." O, utterly reliable
osmosis. My own
words come back
to baffle me. I've been loved thin
as a plush rabbit, threadbare
even--shined to one more
myself than ever
like heavy gold icons
rubbed through
to wisps
by the reverential.
I like to think
our one downy girl
whose carcass we have
not found might come scrabbling
today from underbrush
skirting Caldwell Creek
when she hears
in the pail
grain
singing.
