"If you lived here I'd never get dressed."
More Perihelion:
Bob Sward's Writer's Friendship Series
Featherweight
Doe's muzzle on my neck
felt too forward, like a man
unzipped in the lunch line.
Morning smelled of geese.
I dragged the furniture
outdoors, whipped it with
reeds. Quilts still warm,
damp from sleeping. Guns
in the distance. Snap like
my hip in the kitchen,
on the counter, stove jets
tuned, clicks and breath.
A game of gin rummy
to distract the barn owl
roosting in our front porch
rafters. Nine years earlier
Beth Clark shit on your
mother's clematis vines
as I waited in the Pinto.
You in a paneled back
bedroom, trying to grow
your first beard. Didn't see
my black hair, or that bag
of junior mints on the dash.
Our maps north. Or handfuls
of flower down Beth's jeans.
In the hatch our backwards
tent and opera glasses, tin
cup and saucer. You were at
the rocks that night, sliding
down the ravine on your torso.
Arms stretched, mud slicked
flannel. I could have ridden
your back, slippery man.
All the way to Escanaba.
_______________________________________________________________ Bird Bones
Empty me. It's autumn
and we're still here
in the pink of it.
Who said anything
about marabou, hair
rinsed in rainwater and ale.
I'm better in trees.
You won't have to search
for nipples in my shirt
once it's November.
I'll put it out there. Canada
geese wander into the yard
like they're reading
my meter. I don't mind
the company. Boys next
door shadow the thicket
for a glimpse, as a pheasant
skitters onto the clothes line
and away with my garters.
Why the red, and not tangerine?
If you lived here I'd never
get dressed. Serious trouble
when shopping, lawn mowing.
More practical in Florida.
You can bend my arms
any direction without a snap.
Follow the muscles of my back
in your Buick, like that might
bring you deep northwoods
fast as gunfire. Your wolf dog
sleeps best at my feet. You're in
these sheets, oak and willow,
match that sets a house burning.
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