head turning as if he heard my son’s voice, until he does it over and over, predictable
little dragon head. Whole predictable body.
We’ll all be sleeping tonight, at some point. At some point,
we’ll all be sleeping tonight. Unless we die in these last hours of the day.
But if we make it through, my head will look like yours, asleep. Just like it. Just like that.
EVERYTHING SMALL
Look, ok, the story—
first, a fox
is on fire, but not
dying, no, in a god-
like way, and flying
a bit, you know,
in the yard
above the grass
in a figure eight
loosely,
and grinning
so maybe you look
at the fox and think,
He’s a fool!
except that you’re
distracted by
all the fire,
how you feel heat
from him from
inside the house
where you’ve been
all along,
haven’t you?
But to continue—
second, a rabbit,
small enough
to hide beneath
a weed,
one leaf of a weed,
which is sad,
yes, pity the body
before it’s grown
fully, or
the body that
can’t complete
itself how it might,
not that
everything small
is paltry, just
worry about
the rabbit for me
who’s in the yard
right now
under that fiery fox
that came
out of nowhere.
Shit, you left
the house
with a treat in your
hand as if you
understand foxes,
fox-gods, any
wild animal
in forms magical,
impossible.
Throw it away from
the rabbit, go to
the rabbit—
is that the plan,
the rescue that
paints you
hero, savior?
Well, the fox comes
right up and
bites your hand off.
How’s that, you
wonder, you
handless fiend?
The rabbit’s gone.
And the fox,
sated or feeling
bad about what
he’s done,
is off, down the hill,
flame going out,
feet touching
ground again,
slipping into
the gallop of every
four-legged animal
that comes
to about the knee,
his soft ears
turning
at the sound of
your voice
screaming
but starting to cry.
Every animal
nearby, you imagine,
is turning to listen
to you now.
TWO OAKS
I remember them as impossible trees—roots perfectly under the ground. I have a maple tree now and you can’t grow anything at its base, such a wreck with its knotty roots, and I see the way the animals burrow there, in that patch of dirt. But my childhood backyard is a flat field of zoysia in my mind, hardly touched by the two trees, as if they poked through a plane of existence, connecting one plane to another, the plane of sky maybe, or something before that, just there, just so. If I could plan a dream, I would walk myself up one of those oak trees and touch that next plane. I would pierce it as perfectly as the tree had pierced the plane of grass. I would get all my nutrients from below it but excel above. One unfairness to pile on the others.
RATS
It’s difficult to tell
rats are in the basement.
They’re so quiet.
We go to bed so early.
After midnight, they
crawl out of a tunnel
and go to the neighbor’s
birdfeeder and pond.
I imagine their bodies
in the moonlight,
the reflection of their
small faces in the pond
over the ledge
of flagstones.
After the poison
is placed in our rafters,
we tell the neighbors
the rats might feel
sick and go for water
and die in their pond.
I can see that too.
I looked up pictures
of rats so I can
see them in any
compromised position,
like the naked woman
we can all call up
for any crime
in the news. Just as
I can see them,
the rats now, in
positions of success,
quiet and warm in a nest
between my floorboards.
Their faces the same
in