The Little Deer You Find In The Woods : A Metaphor For My Sister

The Princess of the Whole Wide World

She did a dance on the top bunk,
proclaimed herself “Princess of the Whole Wide World,”
and commanded us to tell her our favorite dream.
But we were hollow heads
hiding cameras without film
like that sculpture out at Geiger's place
with the dead body all stretched out
and taking shallow breaths.
But she was not like the wayward sister
all hopped -up on fetti and mumbling, “You're cute.”
No, she was soft
like pink butter
trimmed in white faux fur.
I was serious when I promised,
“I will never let you fall”
but it's ridiculous and she didn't believe me.
I had held her tight and remained upright
even as bumblebees sebuku'd themselves on my bare feet
and she hollered at the footage.
Anyhow, I'll be old & feeble,
or dead and wasted,
when her own falls become serious and painful
when she will really need some help.
I can no longer travel freely.
I can no longer move about at will.
I am yoked to this present
and fear what change I may invoke with any dance.
I'm not sure she'll want to be queen of anything
and hope that she will ride upon my shoulders
until my knees buckle
and I lay her down again on that same top bunk.

A Panic: inside & out

Exterior Night.

My friends were all either killed or maimed by those markets,
of course

it could have been worse

it was as bad as it could get

we should have known better

The knowing looms up slowly
like a sugar maple slipping from cold & creeping fog;
its bare bronchial branches,
too twisted
for flow chart or pie graph,
almost lost
in the dim supplyside glow of fairylight.

They took all that they could carry,
shivering jellyfish chills,
they slid across those long lawns,
slick with yellowjackets & soppy streamers.
Worrying that weight
into the woodframed safety of adultery.

Interior Night.

She had to do it twice
just to make sure
she had no excuse.

The knowing grows out greedy,
part of the floral pattern
of any sleazy couch,
and anyone could smell it,
the bar-b-que stench,
lingers & lays in the secondary shadow,
the shattered scrub pine, the Valium and all that whiskey.

Untitled

I am almost out of spells and need to rest
surrounded by woodgrain and the seaside
cerulean against white
where generation lie upon generation
fighting fires & watching the dog die
between the ironing board & where father bred the big blind fish
where the sound slips in waves
and I am hardly ever.

He has wholes in his hands
just like the holes in mine
only more of them.

When I have rested and got my spells back
then we may go back to the big waters,
glacier cold and choked with trees,
or parts of trees
surrounded by woodgrain and the seaside.