Friday, May 24, 2013

Transformation

I hang by my feet to sleep
leathery wrapped
shoulder-to-shoulder companioned
at dusk
our maelstrom unfurling

like swallows
conferring at one
patch of sand in the San Lorenzo River
whirl of ash skyward
rows of soldiers below
never-ending touch-&-gos

spangled mallards in 3-duck formation
scan for landing
every pass a tighter curl
lock on target, shallow glide
into splashes & skids
the water scarcely disturbed

next to Ray on the plane
a woman suffers a heart attack
(it wasn’t something he said)
Afaa’s class in Boston takes on Mother Courage

someone is always standing
at ground zero

detonated transform
body to mist
body heat to heated air
better to dissolve completely
than live grievously injured
bystanders spattered

in south Florida
early-twentieth-century hunters
looked forward to spring
for targeting rookeries — heron, ibis, egret —
killing the nesting pairs
for feathered hats, not hate
their families so poor they ate gull eggs

still, people ask
how can it happen here?
so placid with insular contemplation
innocence does not equate
to protection

the spring wind pummels new-leafed branches
borrows orange petals
iris & agapanthus blossom in their place
flowering maple is not maple
but Chinese lantern, Indian mallow
cousin to flannel flower

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