Life Stuff

obviously I am a child of language, for I think I am a child of nature

raised on words I believe I was raised in a green pasture

having ideas about goats, ideas about sheep

yet literally never in my life having been beside a sheep of any color

temperament or texture, sure though of its woolly heft and fecal odor

.

I think I will lie down in a field with a young man when I am older

I think it’s done side by side and facing fondly

the man puts his hand on the woman’s wimple and she wettens

they both keep their pretty boots on and wind knits them

with petting grasses, makes of them the nest the infant crawls from

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surely I’m a city poet for I think it’s done in dusty hay bales

yet have attended field trips and it wasn’t sexy

yet have caught heat loping in the easy business of bigger cities

in the building shadow, in the crooks of simple strangers

feel myself most in heat here in this distance that we cultivate together

.

breathe the most airy here when I’m alone a whole city by me

keeping loose track of who’s asleep and who’s on running trolleys

if an animal comes near me it’s a metaphor for something

if just perhaps my lack of ishness with a larger nature

I do grieve this green earth I’m told is dying, I do grieve the bird names

.

flying out of use, do blame the warm airports and hot dollars

the vacant rooms stacked high over the city’s floorboards

stacked above cardboard signs for money or against fascists

not high above the city’s useful streets I slink against a stranger

I am for strangers, nature, myself and strangers

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from Glove Money, forthcoming from Nightboat Books

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