Sixfold Poetry Summer 2014

arrows of sun piercing clouds). Even the word

  “grip” fits, what neither part will do as he seals

  their tenuous kiss with aluminum tape, welding

  the last few grooves of the hose to the duct’s

  ridge.

  Ricky Ray

  The Bird

  I

  She looked over and saw a bird underneath a city tree,

  its head sunken,

  its body so still and low we thought it dead.

  Then it struggled to lift its head and showed us:

  one eye swollen, an inlaid marble,

  the other swollen and crusted over,

  the beak grotesque with infection.

  It wobbled its head like five-hundred pounds,

  shook as though a fault line were widening,

  and it was.

  Her heart leapt out of her and I felt it and mine followed.

  Then I acted out of pain and frustration,

  that sobering, sorrowful uselessness,

  told her to get up, I wanted action, said

  sitting there being sad was doing nothing to help it,

  and that was true, or maybe it wasn’t,

  but it was the wrong way to say it,

  the wrong way to harness this energy

  hovering over a life that was broken and breaking apart.

  We carried our groceries upstairs,

  called the rehab center and left a message.

  Got down the cat carrier,

  made a nest out of socks and an old T-shirt,

  a nest we’d made before, and told the cats to be good.

  II

  Then we went down and she cupped it in her hands

  and lowered it in, covered it, told me

  how cold it felt, and bony: even less of a chance.

  I found hand warmers in our emergency kit,

  shook them and placed them over its wings.

  She filled a tea cup with water

  and dripped drops along its beak.

  We couldn’t tell if it swallowed,

  tried to decide what to do,

  turned to the internet for help.

  It didn’t offer much.

  Then I heard commotion in the cage,

  saw it flapping and called her over.

  Maybe the warmers were too hot,

  or maybe it wanted freedom,

  from here, from its body, from life, just—out.

  She held it again, tried to shh its heart calm.

  It settled for a moment.

  Then it flapped harder,

  flipped itself over, scrambled its claws in the air.

  We saw the gash along its body, how wasted its flesh,

  felt its inability to eat and she made the call.

  I had no doubt in the right of her heart.

  Something in me knew this was coming,

  forefelt the tears in her eyes,

  the dread in my limbs.

  III

  I found the sharpest, largest knife I could

  and hid it along the arm of my sweater.

  She asked if I was going to break its neck.

  I shook my head, said I wasn’t confident

  that would be as quick and painless as it seemed;

  what I had in mind would be quicker and sure.

  She asked if she could carry it to the roof,

  and I said yes, picked up a plastic bag for after.

  Then she asked if she could help,

  and I said no, wanted to spare her that,

  and she didn’t protest or ask again,

  walked to the other side of the roof and cried.

  IV

  I held it down on a flat rock,

  its head drooping on that mangled neck,

  felt the strength in its muscle

  as I pinned it down

  —so faint—

  pressed the blade gently but steadily into its throat,

  its beautiful, purple-green, grey feathered throat,

  and sliced,

  quick and hard,

  in one swift stroke

  severing spine and head

  and leading its blood toward the light.

  God, how that headless body writhed,

  bucked for minutes against

  the stillness that called it out of this world,

  or down through its seams

  into the underbelly of existence,

  and no wonder it shook:

  all that energy leaving the body at once.

  I walked over and hugged her then,

  saw her wet, red, swollen eyes

  and felt pangs I have no words for.

  V

  I asked her to get napkins

  and two more plastic bags

  to clean up what I’d done.

  She did.

  I cleaned, kept the head with the body and wrapped it in white.

  She saw the knife on the way down and knew.

  We placed it in the freezer,

  with the others we’d found on our walks through the city,

  so many avian deaths dotting the sidewalks.

  We’d bury them soon,

  before winter and its hardening

  made the ground and the task even more . . . more what?

  I don’t know.

  But she thanked me then, and that—that I understood.

  VI

  Later that day,

  she said a good man

  is better than a great one.

  I know what she means.

  And when she says it,

  I believe her.

  She said her heart felt better, lighter,

  at ease in the release—its,

  the relief—ours.

  VII

  I went up there the next morning

  to check the spot:

  all that was left was an already fading,

  poorly wiped-up pool of blood.

  That, and something I couldn’t name,

  something that passes between us in times like these,

  something that made my whole body tingle with affection

  when I went back down and watched her sleep.

  Something that stirs deep in this being,

  deep where we are no longer merely human,

  spreads its wings and flies with me,

  flies through me now here to you.

  IIX

  Is this sufficient?

  Have I made the life of the bird

  and our involvement in it an honored thing?

  Is this good enough to put down the pen,

  bow my head to life and its ways

  and let nature carry on?

  I don’t know, but it feels good enough

  to sleep on, and at the moment,

  that’s good enough for me.

  IX

  Goodnight,

  dear bird,

  I’ll say hello

  to your fellows

  in the morning.

  X

  And thanks, world,

  for whatever it is

  I received today—

  I don’t need

  to know its name.

  Chopping Wood

  I liked going out in the rain,

  so much rain in that land

  of green hills, evergreens

  and infections of the lung,

  liked stepping through

  puddles in my once

  water-resistant boots

  as I made my way

  to the woodshed where

  I’d pull the rusty light-cord,

  check for spider webs,

  then eye the piles,

  one of oak, several of fir,

  and pick the next ashes

  for our old-fashioned,

  wood-burning stove.

  Then I’d carry the logs

  to the chopping block

  and drop them, not carelessly,

  but less concerned with

  the way they’d lie

 
than the way they fell,

  and wonder about

  the woodsman who felled them,

  how he’d ponder

  bringing them down

  from the sky

  and selling them

  by the cord, whether

  the land was his

  or he bought them,

  walking through

  and showing which,

  splashing paint

  on the bark

  to remember.

  Then I’d pick up the logs,

  heft the weight

  of wood in my hand

  and place them on the block,

  this time with care

  so they wouldn’t fall

  and would offer me

  their broadest face

  to swing my favorite

  axe down into.

  And then I’d begin

  the work that took me

  out in the rain in joy,

  I’d measure my paces

  back from the block,

  a two-hundred fir

  by my quick reckoning,

  I’d lower my hands

  along the shaft,

  send the heavy head

  along its arc

  and throw some

  muscle into the slice.

  And if the wood

  was placed right

  and the swing

  was hard enough,

  if hand and eye, mind

  and muscle came together

  in perfect concert,

  the wood would split,

  the blade would embed

  ever so slightly

  in the face of the block,

  and I’d place my sole

  on the edge of that old fir,

  I’d firm my grip on the handle

  and use the leverage

  of my body

  to bring

  the axe-glint

  back into the light.

  And if any of those

  things was off, the axe

  would get stuck

  in the little log, and I’d

  lift it, axe and all, over my head

  and come crashing down

  until it split, or the blade would

  stick in the block

  deeper than I’d intended

  and I’d have to tease it

  side to side while

  I tried to coax it out.

  An hour’s rain later,

  out it would come,

  the wood would be split

  and I’d pile it in my arms,

  careful of splinters,

  then carry it in

  to warm the bodies,

  the lives of my

  wife and children.

  Once, I missed the log

  and the block entirely

  and the blade

  glanced off my shin,

  but made no damage,

  no cut, not even a bruise,

  and I thought of how

  easily the bone

  would have splintered,

  I felt pain at

  the thought of

  being a tree

  subject to the woodsman’s

  expertise, the loss of shade

  that was respite

  to so many creatures,

  the nests

  that may have been woven

  high up

  in the swaying branches,

  the resting spots

  for migrants, playgrounds

  for squirrels, the haunts

  for owls whose screeches

  scorched us in our beds,

  the cats alert with God

  only knows in their ears.

  And I thought of the grave

  I dug on that property,

  larger than a man’s grave,

  the size of a woman

  and child I thought

  as I dug through dirt

  into grey clay

  that didn’t want to be dug,

  the mother llama looking on

  and moaning low

  as her child’s body

  decomposed under the tarp.

  Then I stepped

  out of the rain

  onto the doorstep,

  opened the door

  and saw those

  dear faces,

  and was glad all that

  thinking and chopping

  was behind me.

  Phoebe Reeves

  Every Petal

  The roses in the pitcher open

  their gradient of desire.

  My flesh blooms, too, and I travel

  its gradations: fulfillment,

  need, silence. The white

  at the height of the curve, what

  comes after speech.

  After petals come

  loose in the hand.

  Without the fruiting

  body, the red hip

  violent against winter’s

  shushing monochrome, tart and disdainful.

  Muscle, also pink,

  also loosening, clenches

  its last bud. Releases its last bloom of blood.

  What We Don’t See When We Witness

  Twice, I sang with nine other women,

  all older than me, beneath the shadow

  of the stage, behind the orchestra’s last row.

  The bassoons, the fourth violins, the harp.

  Just back and above I could hear the feet

  rustling and thumping down. Titania,

  Bottom, Puck, the pas de deux, the local

  ballet school girls all dressed

  as tiny fairies—I would see them after,

  leaving with their parents, cheeks flushed like

  the flowers they were supposed to be.

  Three hundred dollars was enough

  to take the train up and stay in my old

  bedroom, regress in age and occupation,

  be the chorus girl again, without spot

  lights, in matte black like stage hands,

  singing only a small part while the story’s

  feet in worn pointe shoes tattooed its

  old tune behind me, in the lights.

  Three years ago this winter J took E

  to the emergency room, late and in the

  cold dark of old December, two days

  back from their honeymoon. Her breath

  came short in the car, shorter, and he

  left her at the bay doors to park the car.

  No E when he ran back, no breath.

  Just the halogen lighting and the scrubs

  and the obscene gift shop.

  Was it looking back or not

  that lost Orpheus his wife?

  I never knew any ballet better than

  the one I never saw.

  Atomic Oneiromancy

  We see the bomb in the distance, knowing

  the radiation comes. We can’t

  just crawl into a lead-lined refrigerator like Indiana

  Jones, and come out adjusting our fedoras.

  First, nausea. Weariness, blurred

  eyesight. Then, the dreaded hair

  on the pillow, coming loose at the root.

  The cells of the stomach and intestines

  slough off like a glove peeled

  inside out. Can’t eat, can’t drink,

  veins thin under skin like dry

  river beds. Isn’t that far enough

  to go?

  Or is it worse to live past the present

  crisis, to imagine all our little half buried

  codes clicking on in the genome,

  like land mines waiting for the pressure

  trigger, precious inheritance

  passed down for generations, all

  the rigors of natural selection

  switched on at once as we

  flick the light on over our heads,

  and watch it rain down, alpha,

  beta, gamma, the alphabet r />
  of our unmaking. If not this,

  then something else.

  Enthymeme

  All enzymes are catalysts, therefore they battle entropy.

  You enter the house enumerating your domestic sins,

  trying not to envy the dancers jumping high in their entrechat—

  remember, their toes look like hamburger.

  During the entr’acte they shoot up their feet with Novocain and cry.

  Such is beauty.

  You get all entangled in the entourage of your insecurities,

  but the pruned redbud trees are never too mangled

  to put out the tiny cilia of their good looks come March.

  You are not entitled to any more entropy than the rest of us.

  Pause. Make your entrance.

  Entertain the guests. Envelop them in your hearty

  goodwill. Enunciate their names, making eye contact.

  They will remember how you reached out your hand,

  your enthusiasm for their chatter.

  It’s better to find comfort in their enthrallment, the canapés,

  the gossips picking through the absent players’

  entrails, than to be on stage, ensnared in the one spot light,

  waiting for your partner in the pas de deux.

  He’ll never show.

  There’s only the entreaty of the crowd and the ensuing silence.

  The creak of the worn wood boards.

  Did you think your waiting would entrance all these

  entrenched carnivores? You’re an entrepreneur in a desert,

  a seamstress in a nudist colony, a chauffeur

  in an automobile museum, a museum on the moon.

  You are entombed in your own environs

  and your patrons applaud when you fold down,

  fetal, under the sodium lights, and press your entire body to the stage.

  David Livingstone Fore

  Eternity is a very long time or a very short time

  Perched between

  a stone bear

  & bull on

      this common winter lunchtime