Three Poems
More Bang for Your Buck Running Scared
Isaac is woken by the hinge of his door. Before morning can open its red eye. Abraham is in orange head to steel toed boots. The pickup idles in the drive. A thermos of coffee in the cup holder. Isaac is gifted his first rifle. Isaac who jumps at the sound of thunder follows his father up the deer stand ladder. The boy who can’t look down. Abraham believes time is right to give his son to God’s country. To teach him to live off the land. Abraham is never gun shy when his shot grazes square in front of him. A twelve point buck. A fawn skipping behind it. The boy closes his eyes. Pulls the trigger. Misses. Hears Abraham’s low sigh. Watches the deer bolt. His chest pounding just as quick. Both of them spared. Next time. Abraham offers, a heavy pat on his son’s shoulder. Isaac winces. Feels the purple blush of a bruise begin to kick over his collarbone. Eye of the fawn wisening.
You Catch More Locusts with Honey
bops the head of John the Baptist on a platter like a fatted calf. Wobbling about on the vertebrae. C5 or 6. I ask what’s at the root of devotion. John swears by his colon health. Protein rich diet. Diverse and thriving gut flora. It’s hard to detach oneself from their glowing accomplishments. I ask how he remains so patient. Give John’s skull a good shake. He sneezes up a locust. Seven year cicada! He giggles. My sources say no. The cicada and locust are of separate taxonomic orders. Like John and Elijah. Of the same cloth and not. Like patience and devotion. Too often I forget this is all open to interpretation. I wash John’s hair and he coos. Soak the head in a bucket of honey. Lather everlasting. I hang his head up like a lantern in the tallgrass. John babbles on about the importance of flossing. I hear the insects chew the meat of his chin. Strip the enamel. Scrape the hard edge of their wings. A song amplified in the damp quilt of John’s cheek. It doesn’t sound sad. The natural order of things. John snorts. Ticklish wilderness. An abundant ecosystem buzzing about the frontal lobe. Stirring amidst the cacophony of his evolution. It’s not so bad. Waiting. The waning red of a sinking sun. Less sad the longer you listen. Miming the song without speaking a chirp of it. Prairie ignited and regenerative. Molting the shell in the blue night. John’s eyes adjust to the dark. He’s comfortable with god in the periphery. He promises. No need to center himself. He stays grounded. I pinch each of his lobes. Rattle the head a final time. What do you hope comes next? I ask. And he says he is searching for a new plane of existence in which he is only slightly taller. Shoulder high as the bluestem scratching at his chin. It’s possible. He squints. Blinking through the swarm of a thousand little wings snapping.
Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire Log Pose
Lazarus leans into suspension of belief or bridge pose as it’s better known. Relaxes his lumbar region. Mourning routine keeps the mind sharp. Lazarus, early riser, exercises his degenerative discs. Values ritual. Lazarus, master of the corpse pose, has impeccable posture. Assembles a list of renewed years resolutions. Raises dead skin with a dull knife from beneath his nails. Peels the cloth seaweed mask from the apples of his cheeks slowly. Pats his pores refreshed. Knows the path to enlightenment is a controlled burn. It’s spring again in the prairie. Lazarus’s list insists he be more assertive concerning matters of rebirth, not excluding basic prairie landscaping. Lazarus swings the drip torch through the pasture. Watches the fires stretch wide. Leaves his door ajar. No more surprises. Lazarus lets smoke split the curtains. Bends into locust pose. Takes deep breaths. Feels nothing resembling fear. Watches the flames pulse and smolder the hills around home. Lazarus, impatient, talks to his plants. Holds his palm steady above a scorched earth. Rise up and Adam! It happens slow. Each tiny green bud sprouts through the ash in its own time.
