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 victory and death.
Small as the red globe
grapes that leave
my mouth so sweet
this summer.
FOR MAX
Ok, so you know someone who died horrifically
Ok, so you know an animal who died horrifically
In a fire let’s say or a building’s collapse
Or, ok, so you know someone who’s dying right now
Except maybe not horrifically
Except your idea of horrifically is changing
The way a gun death seemed less horrific than the gas chambers
Until the country kept ignoring gun deaths
Now they seem horrific
And then I really try to consider the word horrific
And horror and I think about how I only watch horror movies
In black neighborhoods where they make jokes
The whole time about the dumb white girl that’s going back into the house
Until I’m pealing with laughter in my seat
And
