Equinox
up where I can’t reach
is a Y-incision in the sky, sliced
by returning geese
far away, where I can’t hear,
war cracks and whines
I don’t feel how fire opens
or when the loud heat comes
only that it does: metal, roadkill, char
the soft hours shaking
I cannot touch, cannot wheeze
through grit, nor gulp back
the flesh-sweetened nausea
which fills the streets
in a distant city it’s dark, then holiday bright
boys pull on their boots,
slice their hands along the carcass of a truck
their wounds suck at each other
in my quiet kitchen, one sugar bowl,
vitamins, tea, books
and two old sleeping dogs
squirrels, red and grey
ground-nuzzle below the windy feeders
spring is busy
a first syllable rifts the page,
its shadow-wing crinkled as plastic bags
heaving into make-shift ditches
what will grow next?
mud, salt, flowers from a blown-out tire?
the next syllable is a shell-torn seed
caught in bacterial springtime