Down The House
words in the faces
of these children
complexly ours when
the math couldn’t
be more
simple
you can’t burn a page
and read it
and having abandoned them
to fire
we don’t get
to go on
talking water
Down The House
words in the faces
of these children
complexly ours when
the math couldn’t
be more
simple
you can’t burn a page
and read it
and having abandoned them
to fire
we don’t get
to go on
talking water
Algorhythm
We are
what the setting sun makes
of bird nests in the neighborhood trees
clumps of matter
that don’t
except as we are beautiful
except as we give shelter
except as we are beautiful
rhythm of something
beat out by feet and wings
on the sidewalk
in the air
rhythm that would
be nothing
except as we are beautiful
West End of the World
The steep steps
of the steel slide
she climbed
when we stopped at the park
after a day’s drive
and climbed
and climbed
and climbed
until the word lost all
meaning in the act
little shoes
little rocks
as gravel below her
ducks on the pond driving in
if I tell you a steel slide
is of the west am I
a liar
she slipped at the top
if I tell you the world almost came
to an end am I
your mother
the time you jumped off the roof
when we were kids
in this west
where the summer slides and shingles
burnt the backs of
our legs if
I tell you I’ll
die here
don’t
call a doctor
call a duck
and when it lifts off the pond
don’t shoot
All Along
after George Oppen
The day’s offerings
don’t know about the end
of days
I know the poet said it was
a brick, daughter
waiting in the wall with
your name
but I say it’s this apple
that grew
for you
all along.
After John Fogerty
long as I concede to light
its candle
I’m gone and coming
home soon
I won’t
no I won’t
lose the highway long
as I concede
to light
Images by Elfie Hintington courtesy of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
Copyright © 2016, Otis Nebula Press. All rights reserved.