An Autumn Seurat

Madness to step from the warm house. Still — cold lung-flooding air brings a tinny pain-pleasure, piercing the back of his jaw like the taste of a spoon under ice cream. The forest is dry and cold and ripe for harvest. In the house behind him, girls sing by the sink to the clacking of dishes; drown out the scratched record they mimic while the player plinks out every line. A high wind pricks out in his cheeks a matched pair of pinkish blooms and he tastes vanilla again. Hint of metal. Spiraling to the back of his brain. In the woods, he bends to his task, snapping branches underfoot and over knee, hefting half a dozen at once, on average. Inside is a fire and sisters. A sweet dog nearly dead with years. But for now he is lost in the woods, free and frightened, cheeks aflame, ears perked for danger, fingers numb and useless.

He bends to branches. He hums. He keeps his eyes wide for deer.

Alchemical Confrontations in June

1.

A barefoot bride on hot concrete;
bridesmaids in kelly green.
Married by the harbor,
where ferries in and out
remind us how
everything is in motion.

2.
To kill a spider is no small thing.
It moves brazen across the page of your book,
fills the doughy center of a doughnut’s “o.”
You slam the pages shut
before it hits the right hand margin.
Decisive is what your teachers said
when they had to say something.

3.
The white arc of an airplane
splurting across the sky
is as much obscenity as anything.
Close enough to catch the propeller’s shushshushshush;
too far to hear the child in the window seat
crying; ears overfull with air.