Don’t let the bluebottomed shoes get the best of you.
See, this is the life. These are the toys.
This is the general assessment of all around you.
Breathe it in, and it’s everythingart:
as much a strictline sketch
as the rubber facsimile of an internal tear,
a budding deathnode, an unborn child.
You just keep going, with the eggs in the basket,
that old childhood love loved young again every day,
hidden in the furnace or the Saturday warmth
felt in toeknob television: there’s the backyard,
spriteful and full of mysteries. Pack it in the workbag,
stuff it in a stick of peppermint gum. Gnash. Gnaw.
The planting’s done but never ends: till and till.
Afternoon to evening, you can learn from the dog.
She observes and sighs and can hardly see,
but she seems enamored by the blurry hills, the trees.
The cedar rocking chair’s the best: that good ol’ perch.
End of the route. You can see the sunset from here
or at least a glowing in the fog.
If you wonder how the tender kill: with no ease.
The rabbit in the box, first or last, knows its siblings
have been skinned. Feel its warmth. Hand to tiny wary head —
thank you. And be swift. Deliver that blow so it feels no pain.
There is no steep division between the living and our meat.
The moss on the trees will stick us in the belly of the forest.
Don’t worry. I don’t know my way out yet — neither should you.
Steer yourself toward deertracks; toward hornytoads and frozen wood.
Pick up the meteor fragments and the pretty stones and
seek out the ponds in the rocks and weeds.
Do not mistake diamonds in the rough
for gleaming spirits of the swamp. These uncut trails, bare or blooming,
will carry you up, down. Up, down. Up on the shoulders.
Out of control. Down the cul de sac. Spinning tires.
Again. Up on the roof. Down the ladder. Starry shivers.
Up. Again. Down. Again. Up. Again. Down.
Until you arrive, of course, back on the doorstep. Ring the doorbell.
You know already, and you’ve never actually been gone, but anyway.
Welcome. Anyway. Welcome home.
