Garden Essai

In all modesty you moved
the painted fern nearer.
You trusted the work, trusted
the nature of the desire.
It wasn’t ego.
Afternoons were haze and walking
back and forth. Perhaps the veronica
had been precious, foolish
so that the yard mocked,
the back corner quickly
took itself back.
There’d be no keeping up.
You were, you learned, a minute note,
as with conviction—with jewelweed
and with sumac—the yard proved
in every membrane its vast thesis.

An Economy

Warm, limp disappointment
one then another
we lay at each other’s feet

The house stands erect.
Our slick livers grow back
in order to be pecked out.

My devoted hen preens.
I give her a worm—
she gives me an egg, a cake.