Headwaters Read online

or turn back it had a yellow apple in its mouth

  and the little ones chew on the bones-o

  NOBLE DOG

  behind our house down to the brook and the woods

  beyond the groomed grass and flower beds what we see

  are brook and woods and sometimes mild creatures of the field

  we thought when we bathed in the claw-footed tub we could pretend

  we stayed inside the natural world no shutters no shades at night

  beside the mirror over the sink the windows darkened into mirrors

  where my daughter at thirteen admired her tan her new body until she felt

  or thought she felt something move outside in the yard and asked quietly

  up the backstairs for us to come down here for just a minute please

  come down here now we couldn’t tell how much was fear

  how much was shame we thought she needed us to be calm

  we tried to be calm like the trooper we called who said without alarm

  to the handsome noble dog where is he buddy where is he buddy

  at which as if in a game of fetch the dog went straight around the house

  to the one smell that didn’t fit to the one smell that crossed the clipped grass

  into the ditch beside the dirt road where the dog went too the dog

  tracking the smell the trooper tracking the dog the dog

  not barking or baying until the scent stopped

  inside the culvert bearing the brook west under the road

  a large metal pipe that amplified the dog’s whimpers and moans

  dog of righteousness dog of retribution

  we heard it from our house where soon the shutters would go up

  we sat in the kitchen the summer air soft as a damp rag we knew

  this was a moment of consequence but we couldn’t tell

  whether the world had grown larger or smaller

  MOLES

  where is his hat where is his horse where is his harrier my beloved

  is distraught he made this yard each blade each stem each stalk except

  the mounds of fresh dirt like little graves it’s moles that make the mounds

  when they make holes they’re worms with fur the cat

  does not do moles she’s stalking rooks and mice beloved

  has scattered human hair across the sod it keeps the deer away

  he has installed a high-pitched hum in the lily bed it keeps the dogs

  out of the yard who might have otherwise unearthed a mole too bad

  traps don’t work the way they do for squirrels my father

  used to thrust the hose into one hole and flood them out my beloved

  does not care what my father did this greensward is his joy his job

  my job was children food house the rest of what I did stayed underground

  GARTER SNAKE

  hibernaculum a hole in the earth

  from which in spring the snakes ooze forth the males

  much smaller than the female stretched out like a tree-limb

  among the tulips not moving not rippling or flinching preoccupied

  a film over her eyes along her body the smaller snakes

  flex and extend they may be helping her shed or may be

  roughhousing like little boys which is what I thought at the pond

  when I saw three mallards jump another duck they stayed underwater

  a very long time she never did resurface the female snake seems

  oblivious sheathed in ribbons one of them shudders off

  and shimmies toward the lilac hedge our friend

  wants to show us he can catch a snake at the top of its spine

  and reaches into the grass but even a garter snake

  has teeth we see it flung then reinvented half erect

  on its coils hissing or taking soundings with its tongue

  swiveling its head to follow the enemy

  that’s us

  GROUNDHOG

  not unlike otters which we love frolicking

  floating on their backs like truant boys unwrapping lunch

  same sleek brown pelt some overtones of gray and rust

  though groundhogs have no swimming hole and lunch

  is rooted in the ground beneath short legs small feet

  like a fat man’s odd diminutive loafers not

  frolicking but scurrying layers of fat his coat

  gleams as though wet shines chestnut sable darker

  head and muzzle lower into the grass a dark

  triangular face like the hog-nosed skunk another delicate

  nose and not a snout doesn’t it matter what they’re called I like swine

  which are smart and prefer to be clean using their snouts

  to push their excrement to the side of the pen

  but they have hairy skin not fur his fur

  shimmers and ripples he never uproots the mother plant his teeth

  I think are blunt squared off like a sheep’s if cornered does he

  cower like sheep or bite like a sow with a litter is he ever

  attacked he looks to me inedible he shares his acreage

  with moles voles ravenous crows someone thought up

  the names his other name is botched Algonquin but yes

  he burrows beneath the barn where a farmer once

  dried cordwood he scuttles there at speech cough laugh

  at lawnmower swollen brook high wind he lifts his head

  as Gandhi did small tilt to the side or stands erect

  like a prairie dog or a circus dog but dogs don’t waddle like Mao

  with a tiny tail he seems asexual like Gandhi like Jesus if Jesus

  came back would he be vegetarian also pinko freako homo

  in Vermont natives scornful of greyhounds from the city

  self-appoint themselves woodchucks unkempt hairy macho

  who would shoot on sight an actual fatso shy mild marmot radiant

  as the hog-nosed skunk in the squirrel trap both cleaner than sheep

  fur fluffy like a girl’s maybe he is a she it matters

  what we’re called words shape the thought don’t say

  rodent and ruin everything

  HOG-NOSED SKUNK

  because she’s half blind and thus prefers

  complete not partial darkness and because

  she cannot raise her tail entirely over her back

  in order to use her one weapon her one defense

  when you come to the squirrel trap from behind

  and cover with a blanket the wire box

  although my beloved won’t believe it

  she just gives up she just gives up

  HOUND

  since thought is prayer if hard and true I thought that thought

  could lead me to compassion for my fellow creatures

  insects excluded contrary to the Buddha the wasps

  might show a little compassion too I do include

  the hound next door it moans all day all night

  a loud slow lament a child can make itself sustain

  to dramatize its misery this dog was once

  the neighbors’ child but now they have an actual child

  he’s been cast down to be a dog again chained outdoors heartsick

  uncomprehending why can’t he just buck up remember his roots his lot

  not more special than any other

  sad hound look up

  at the fledglings’ wide mouths look over here

  at the cat teaching her litter how to hunt all sleek all black

  they’re interchangeable her many tits confirm no favorites

  no first no last

  at least with only two

  both can be a kind of favorite it’s better than three

  I ought to know my sister and I each had one parent to herself

  like Tea for Two it wasn’t hard to be the boy

  until there came the actual boy he was nothing like my father

  wha
t does it mean to have flown from the same nest into the world

  you’re thinking one is best

  one open mouth no first no last but isn’t it

  then the parents who compete no wonder the father of animals

  wanders off the best is two all right one parent and one child

  we’ve seen it work among the elephants

  LOST BOY

  who says we aren’t primarily animals for instance

  you recognize at once the smell of doom and keep away unless

  you’re drawn by pheromones like a soldier ant or for once you worry

  about your soul he reeked of doom despised by those he loved one parent

  missing one parent Pentecostal disgusted by the queer parts of him

  he was himself disgusted self-despising snarling sick

  unto death the chronic contagious sickness of our times

  a righteous judgment was what he called it the rash

  erupted over and over no meds no money no readiness

  for help if there’d been help no self-defense unless you count

  self-sabotage the wounds were old and ugly he kept them fresh he was quick

  to take offense except from me and for what for merely a kindness

  that brought me letters photos poems seeds saved from his yard roses

  profuse on the cards for Mother’s Day on valentines because I was a surrogate

  it cost me nothing until he chose oblivion the news was no surprise his gift

  was always making something out of nothing

  MAESTRO

  he smoked like a chimney we used to say unfiltered

  Chesterfields the fragile horizontal column of ash

  lengthening as he winced at the sour notes but plunged ahead

  even when it splashed down onto the keyboard his long hands

  showing the smaller hands how it was done the Chopin the Bach

  or some reduction of the Nutcracker Suite whatever might be needed

  in order to teach the young you also need

  herculean belief in the possible and his had sugared off

  into a pure elixir he must have sipped from

  nights in his rented room in the widow’s house I suppose

  she cooked for him and always someone’s mother had sent pie

  everyone knew it wasn’t us he loved

  but he made his Chevrolet an open closet instruments and scores

  and the book that conjured every known song

  when there were two pianos the two of us

  took turns the solo the orchestra imagine

  the odds that he’d turn up in my life in time

  to loosen the bony grip of Mrs. Law who kept

  the ledger of your mistakes and whose breath could peel back bark

  exactly as my older sister said when she leapt from the bench

  and fled the lessons leaving me behind it didn’t matter

  whether I was worthy or unworthy he took me

  everywhere in the Chevrolet he played

  with flat fingers I do too

  GEESE

  there is no cure for temperament it’s how

  we recognize ourselves but sometimes within it

  a narrowing imprisons or is opened such as when my mother

  in her last illness snarled and spat and how this lifted my dour father

  into a patient tenderness thereby astounding everyone

  but mostly it hardens who we always were

  if you’ve been let’s say a glass-half-empty kind of girl

  you wake to the chorus of geese overhead

  forlorn for something has softened their nasal voices

  their ugly aggression on the ground they’re worse than chickens

  but flying one leader falling back another moving up to pierce the wind

  no one in charge or every one in charge in flight each limited goose

  adjusts its part in the cluster just under the clouds

  do they mean together to duplicate the cloud

  like the pelicans on the pond rearranging their shadows

  to fool the fish another collective that constantly recalibrates but fish

  don’t need to reinvent themselves the way geese do

  when they negotiate the sky

  on the fixed

  unyielding ground there is no end to hierarchy

  the flock the pack the family you know it’s true if you’re

  a take-charge kind of girl I recommend

  houseplants in the windows facing south

  the cacti the cyclamen are blooming on the brink

  of winter all it took was a little enforced deprivation

  a little premature and structured dark

  BIRCH

  before it’s too late I need to study the great religions time

  is speeding up in the bad movie of my life months fly off

  the calendar or the camera stays fixed on one tree

  in leaf no leaves in leaf sunrise sunset

  as the great Yiddish musical says

  and then the chuppah the goblet smashed delirious dancers

  parading the newlyweds in chairs like royalty but why

  give up those beasts whose hooves leave valentines

  for us in the muddy sty and why so much anxiety

  regarding women ditto Mary’s

  beatific smile but I like distinctive hats on those in charge

  and I know I need a little intercession spilt salt

  flung over the shoulder a daily lineup facing east

  though some of us have to pray in our personal tents

  like snails

  a wedding in a garden

  suits me fine the flowers left unsacrificed

  it’s Adam and Eve except that Adam had no mother

  no one who worried about that missing rib now incarnate

  wearing white like a young birch beside my boy who’s grown

  bewitched looking nowhere but at her I know that look

  a Druid with his chosen tree he might as well

  be on his knees he needs an altar something old something

  once revered perhaps I could volunteer bring on the saw the guests

  can bow their heads and count the rings the years

  BEAR

  pressed full-length against the screen unzipping it

  for a better grip to help him help himself to the seed and the suet

  slung high under the eave by the man

  who has charged down from the bedroom onto the porch

  in his white loincloth like David against Goliath

  but only one good lung shouting swearing

  and behind him the woman caught

  at the lip of the lit kitchen

  where was my sister

  with her gun or would she be praying since she prays routinely

  for a parking spot and there it is or would she be speechless for once

  that this man so moderate so genial so unlike me

  had put himself one body-length away from a full-grown bear

  or would she be saying you my dear are the person who married him

  which of course I did I did and I stood behind him

  as he stood his ground on the ground that is our porch

  you can see

  the marks gouged by the famous claws on the wall inside new screen

  now laced by a wire trellis on which nothing climbs

  a vertical electric fence one of us thinks

  the bear can hear it hum from the edge of the woods

  watching us like a child sent to his room as we grill the salmon

  we spiked with juniper berries the other one thinks

  the plural pronoun is a dangerous fiction the source

  of so much unexpected loneliness

  CHAMELEON

  beside myself in Texas the doctors asking my beloved

  to give his pain a number one to ten his answer is always

  two I tell them eight the holly bush
in the yard is putting out new leaves

  which makes its resident lizard bright green also light brown

  along its slender spine a plausible twig

  except the lining of its mouth is red as it puts away

  in three quick bites some kind of fly and then at its throat

  a rosy translucent sac swells and subsides maybe peristaltic

  pushing its meal forward or maybe preening for a mate or maybe

  residual from the blooming hibiscus shrub or maybe learned from frogs

  that also live in a tree but singing is dangerous if you mean

  to replicate vegetation

  O exquisite creature

  whose dull cousin back in Vermont the brown lizard

  navigates our dooryard by alternating pairs of elbows like oars

  determined and clumsy moving across the gravel yet moving forward

  I see you do not move unless you need to eat you almost fool

  the mockingbird nearby in a live oak tree flinging out another’s song

  which is me which which is me

  LAMENT

  absence neither sweet nor bitter

  without the aftertaste of willfulness does it happen

  as the dipper fixed in the northern sky turns

  to lie on its side no longer facing east

  where in late summer the bull rises with its bright red eye

  or is it more like a rock in the swollen stream millennia

  to bind its layered parts then battered cleaved

  then one half tumbled away

  idiopathic is what they say to say

  no evident cause no trigger no blame except to blame

  the way the world winds down winds up again shifting particles

  as easily as pollen in the wind

  stars stone lichen glued to the stone a human hand

  and so one hand withdrawn from the other hand

  what had been paired a left a right

  every cell divides

  in order to multiply it’s where we began

  SPRING

  years of unearthing the rocks out of the field and soon enough

  you’ve built a stone wall the longer the marriage

  the less the need for trying to agree but we’ve agreed

  what will happen at the end of it nothing