complacency/today’s lover

we tiptoe now more than ever
the verges of all
comfort, this house we’ve built
probably delicate
at foundation though
truth be told
we haven’t looked in years

*

I surprised myself by thinking the beard was attractive but
perhaps it was merely youth or coloring or how he leaned over
a computer for doesn’t that speak brains? it could have been
silver hair, or glasses. bow-tie and glasses. shoulder’s curve, certain
combos of eyes/lips, forearm beyond rolled-up sleeve. dressing up
the urges to make them make sense. and then
with clear maturity of thought I told myself you can’t
have everything, not in one person, not in a hundred.
what then, this craving
to bring every ever-changing facet of beauty within?

bird, dog, cat

it happens
from time to time, a mystery
small bird in the house

junco wild-flight hurl at glass door
falling stunned; sparrow
parked on pantry, peering
black-eyed over the molding

how it spent a night in the mixing bowl
how I caught it in the curtain, heart beating
flutter in my closed hand
how the dog whined and pointed
how the cat had grown bored long since
the gift already given

brown marmorated stink bugs

as good as any nature center, your office
window. they touch striped antennae. just one,
in the beginning and how they got between
glass and screen and on the second story—
now you count four clinging up down right left, slow
with that deliberate creepy invasion intent.
they have the tell-tale spots and stripes
you can see very well with your hand-lens
of course they fly, but why? you keep watching

this a.m.

cleaning frenzy downstairs the ruckus
of laundry and drowning perfume

birds dart tree to tree unable to settle
on this branch or that much less thought

but the pair of ducks on the neighbor’s roof-
peak: they stand, step closer together,

pause, step again, coyly dip their heads—
my half-cup of coffee still warm

The Coming of the Dog

So. In a low season, tag-end of winter
and time on our hands (an illusion), did we
feel two teens still at home, two rodents, a cat
not enough? Not that our love couldn’t stretch so
far. Did we need to give without guilt or fear
of spoilage? (a softening too soon into
grandparent-mind, accepting these unfinished
offspring as imperfect, and by our own fault.)

We begin again. Well. She knows a few things
about respecting furniture, sleeping through
the shortening nights. But see, how she needs me
and how I fail again in wrestling, running,
being best friend. Don’t say, unconditional
love. I am more than proof against those brown eyes,
their eloquent pleas.

A life history in suburban plantings

We’re a flower-hungry people, so you know “bloom where you’re planted”: from that land of live oak, bluebonnets, prickly pear you grow in a neighborhood draped with ivy and crepe myrtle. Rooted shallow and wide. Your own first garden unshaded, broad-bladed grass framed by marigold, vinca, mint.

What root traces your steps

to prairie snow, sugar beets, lilac by the door? The spreading apple tree, dandelion spring. Your first taste of hate for forsythia follows to southern pine forests, thin wood at playground’s edge, understory ferns’ moist heat.

What love for a place you never belonged?

Thinking to settle: the huge rain-flopped peony, ants swarming on the buds, short burst of cerise and the cheerful yellow rose. In back, a fragrant heirloom shrub (so your children shower you with petals).

What root graces your steps

to a place of language you can’t speak? Though you can hear its nature through the soles of your feet. Rosenbogen wreathed in pink, balcony view of trellised garnet-red, scented cream-peach Vorstadt walk.

Such love for a place you never belonged.

Now you are here, tamed by hosta, daylily, boxwood hedge. Your roses true knockouts (though bees don’t care) gleaming ruby in the light. Heart-shriveled, craving green-wild and the overthrow of mulch.

What root tangles your steps

and what blame if you guard yourself from sinking right in? You’re the dandelion fluff blown by any new wind…

(the daughter visits)

and I’m thinking of our slow spring days
fascination with eaglet, cygnet
all unfinished things in leaf or on wing

the pleasure in daily checking
pea plant, lettuce bed, sunflower sprout
until that startling morning

we see all is grown beautiful, glossy, wild
shining, confident beyond need
or desire of our shaping

 

devil’s in the closet-cleaning

I am not here to thank you for your service
passing joy, but to bewail my vanity, pride
my mercurial sartorial selections—
and consign the lot to the flames

your heart is not home

you didn’t know you could be lovesick
for a place, two years on
and no cobble-walking, tender for streets

even crosswalk signals; so when your mind sits light
on the task in hand, stitching waves
on ocean waves or maybe curled winter winds

you’re startled to see just that turn
of the Holzweg, the shop with wine-glass
windows, outdoor stacks of rugs

was it the sudden sun-glint on your cheek?
all your pieces wrapped in a rush
still swathed in paper, waiting

Everyday Therapy

It’s true, I’m no cook
like I’m no driver
but after morning tussles—
school, traffic, all those in a hurry
indiscriminately determined on disgust—
I take comfort in this kitchen

turning scraps, skin, bone to broth
full immersion into something
we all need: herb- and earth-
scents, gold warmth to fill
every dark corner

the chopping is one thing, cold knife
for everything you want to throw
smash rend destroy but
slow, slow down, I say
while I have this luxury
to seethe, stew, simmer all day