Let Them Eat
And so, my love, let the ants
make of our humble picnic a feast
as we lie here on the quilt
finding, elsewhere, luscious treats to nibble.
Your earlobe a tender hors d’oeuvre,
my palm a savory saltine,
your kneecap a cupcake,
my breast a cone of soft-serve.
Let them eat, with their pinchy mandibles,
while our recipe for open-mouthed joy
seems too sweet to bear in silence
and becomes a hymn upon my tongue.
Unwanted, but once there
Not again.
We look outside,
up street and down,
and wonder, who
left this for us?
A random generosity.
Feral gray gift,
unwanted but once
there…. Well,
we need it.
It’s almost comforting.
Rain
on our doorstep
like a stray cat leaving
pawprints.
Think of a name for it.
Visit to a Granite Island, Maine
We get there by driving a rollercoaster rise and
descent on a narrow bridge built in the Depression.
Breath comes back on the causeway,
but even that feels dicey, like a storm could sink it.
Spruce and lupine hide the underlying shelf of stone
once quarried for a Rockefeller fountain.
On the main road, banners share smiling images:
each face of the 30 high school graduates. Now what,