Leda's Aubade of Sink and Sledge
Out of salt marsh, out of flat and reed,
out of crabgrass and black pine
they looked like swans
an archipelago of upturned sinks
dumped in a field. And I—
out of Meth, out on bail,
crank-addled, flannel-clad,
my punked-out throat slaked
threadbare— What made me
perch heel on wing above their necks?
Master, Miscreant— my body
buckling as I arched and wailed
a sledge into the porcelain birds—
I was what I heard looping in my head:
Anger is an energy. Mother,
I wasn't born as much as I fell out.
Mother, it's morning.
I don't know what's left to praise.
Your child's home, a blistered sun
tattooed over a sacral crest.
Coda
If the white meant snow, it was snow
the man was leading his burro through,
the man made of faint blue marks
who could not be taken for anything else,
as the lines framing the winter scene
could not be anything but the mountains
of China, sprigs of pine, outcroppings
under which the man crossing a creek
perpetually crossed; even as my mother
packed a casserole with a hodgepodge:
leftover egg noodles, ground beef,
a can of mushroom soup that briefly
held the form of the can, crumbs—
even as she set the dish like a stone
down in the oven's black mouth,
the snow remained snow, the man
lingered stick-still over the creek,
the creek vanishing back into white,
and the dish, when it traveled the walk
from our house to yours, was still a cheap
import, ignoble, nothing more, what we
could give to you who had lost a son.
Late Autumn Wasp
One must admire the desperate way
it flings
itself through air amid winter's slow
paralysis,
and clings to shriveled fruit, dropped
Coke bottle,
any sugary residue, any unctuous
carcass,
and slug-drunk grows stiff, its joints
unswiveled,
wings stale and oar-still, like a heart;
yes, almost
too easily like a heart the way, cudgeled,
it lies
waiting for shift of season, light, a thing
to drink down,
gnaw on, or, failing that, leaves half of
itself torn
willingly, ever-quivering, in some
larger figure.
(c) 2007 by James Hoch. All rights reserved.
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