Two Poems

Mrs. Speaks

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She stands before a window speaking
with a friend, she shifts like compost collapsing
beneath a dress in summer heat. On her nose
a wreck of warts that glisten in light like elvers.
She’s remembering out loud: “When the workers
marched Badger came home to find Henry
had my skirt up past my garters, and a leg
of lamb hot on the table.  And I told him?
Eat up before it gets cold.” In the halflight,
the way the shadows played his face, he looked
like a bearded woman. But, Badger was a bullock.
He took me hard by the arm, on a night walk,
watched an owl snatch a cat from the road, Badger
mewling and hooting beneath stuttering streetlights,
watching with the subtle giddy smile of a retarded child.

Badger Tells of News

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Neighbors brought news
of a rape. They stapled her hair
to the headboard. We wondered
if they had hands; tongues
were found – a kind
of penance, we thought. More
than one. There were hoof-prints
in the morning mud.
The umbrella was still
in its stand. It was bored
with itself – it will not talk. Which,
of course, may be very kind,
considering.