The Now-Life and the Next
after N. Scott Momaday
I am the striped wasp trapped in your dress
smooth leather reins slipping out of your hands
the lustre of golden birchbark even in the dark
a snag of soft wool caught on barbed wire
a fast splash of road salt on the ice-covered stream
the coral of the cardinal’s beak
scent of lemonskin from back-porch terracotta pots
the breath of the tree and the scream of the chainsaw
the turtle’s track across the muddy road
I am the coat left hanging in the hawthorn tree
UNLIKE (me)
Took the last can of seltzer
Took the best painting
No one will ever know
Even in paradise
this safe distanced spot
edge of the everyblue ocean
we hunker down, grieve
apply bandages
are misunderstood, weep
squeeze the splinter out
So stressed that even
salt droplets brushed by wind
on my bare shoulder
make me wince
Walk past the trash
stare down the security camera
Mosquito, tick
poison ivy tendrils thrive
in the rocks, coronavirus
floats through the village
and even goddamned Ghislane Maxwell
hid out here awhile
in this very pine grove
