Quid Pro Quo
A catch of denim streaking on the ground
To serve its multipurpose family: bluegrass?
A zarf to mow; a terrier to coif, or two,
Enchained behind the crosslink-comfort
That comports with the enchanted cortisol
And Mormon-tea. The rootin’-tootin’
Tomatillo brings a slipshod anger to this
Happy system like the naked dead, and
Chicken wire scrapes the Hippocratic
Terriers when others on the sidewalk
Pass to see the denim bulge, exciting in
The possibility of exiting enacted or
Akin to flowers in the doctor’s orifice.
No weir is this. No ermine to keep out,
Though weirdly, nowhere is kept in:
The laundry’s blowing on the line but
All the trees are still; the ravens leave
The yard off-color, polluted by its
Pulmonary tract; the light has a deep
Malt complexity and shine of roasty
Sweetness, different from the smooth
And hearty blue above. Inhaling Earth’s
Innate, ubiquitous descriptors, weir
It’s not: this fence is the yard’s baleen.
That corner’s primrose, blending in
With mania’s Kremlin conscientiousness
And cinder blocks, betrays a milky
Chorea in its endeavor, and – you didn’t
Hear it from me – flirtatiousness that,
If he were here today, would spur Chris
Wren to utter, “Her face foreshadows fire.”
That spot is just an ulcerated epitaph
For someone disowned by their parents,
Next to the cardboard cowboy silhouette
And wind chimes. And mania is out of
Breath on her radical sabbatical, like Adam
Naming all the flies before they’re zapped
On the patio; that anaerobic business of
Naming. Primrose speaks a cursive vim!
That tomatillo nuzzles stripped piano wire
Nudging back to drain the basic romance
From their vulgar sinus. A salamander dips
Into an open carpet cleaner bottle; nip slip
For the pampas grass that quickens with
A rattlesnake or deadly priapism. Leeward
Sides of dog turds proffer bugs that golden
Hall where all the echelons are fused,
According to some northern bumpkins.
The salamander spills the blues that stay
The news onto this denim oversight,
And scampers off uneaten like the night.
Rules schmules! the tomatillo seems
To say to shotgun shells of isolated red
In need of salvo from above. From their
Perspective, gutted Jeeps and nearby
Squabs withdraw from history’s bank
In the economy of God: “A crime more
Organized than teeth! If he were here
Today, Old FDR would have them all
In arrogant arroyos for the gulag, or
The incorruptibility below.” A shiny
Loss of life and proof of poof nearby:
A garden slug in carpet cleaner like a
Tar pit absent stuff to do. A pair of baby
Shoes are dangling from the power line
Above; now I’m not one to gossip, but
It seems an Oxford comma in the sky.
The tree that toured the torrents, routed
Rhetoric and tore the rutting wind
From rotting hours, strangles wasted
Air above redundant training wheels.
A couple empty beer cans triage Wiffle
Balls and shuttlecocks behind a menopausal,
Lovesick reindeer not plugged-in. The
Tomatillo, if it could, would ask, Who made
You? The subwoofer, off the record,
Always answers, Death, et al. A donnish
Disrespect is diving in the kiddie pool,
Deflated by the bird bath with a clownish
Sculpture of a boy that might be Helen’s
Son and lover; all those good, forgotten
People. Post-traumatic stucco limns
The stout conceit. A switchblade set
To circumcise is buried under California
Tags, expired and expiring like tomatillo
Seeds at Machu Picchu. Retired near
The porch and trash bins, satellite
Dishes smile at the way they’re piled
Like the autoicon of a teacher or farrago.
A terrier – the white one – sniffs the air;
The mayonnaise thunderhead and
Cirrocumulus horchata. And the chicken
Clucking only draws her nephew and
A F.U. in her immaterial miasma that
A terrier – the black one – duly will mistake
For his morass. Vicariously moping by
The flagpole: wind too vain and varicose
To muster a reply. A sense of the refined
Immensity is written on the flag in a morose,
Helminthic plasma that, if she were here
Today, would cause that great beauty
Jean Goodsprings to mistake this for a new
Diaspora; more good, forgotten people.
The sawgrass, slatternly as slogans of
The door-to-door campaigners with
The neighbors or the cussing caribou
Far north of here, is canvas where the earth
Was painted with claret behind the shed.
(A man from Kansas selling sloe gin
Used to live here. And a Caribbean woman
Selling dreams of Valparaiso to the bored
And boreal adventurers.) The salamander
Scampers from the sawgrass, and with
Quiddity he bids the rattlesnake to smell
His finger. “Your wish is my command”:
The rattling pituitary gland. If filtering
Our scruples, a pellucid, helpful data less
Polemical and mandarin, more C. elegans
And piccolo, emerged like that RV –
Christened ‘Pecos Bill’ and jacked above
The concrete cracked like sunflowers
Screamed Abso-fucking-lutely at the sun
From underneath it – then the Cheerio of
New nostalgia from this yard, like incense
Or a mea culpa’s covenant with rancor,
Would agree with the primrose and myself
That beauty is possessed by death and
Death possesses all: Ciao bella from
The locusts to Rubella; all in fields
Of endless candles. And nunchaku struck
By the tomatillo. Don’t forget its busted
Chain’s unhealthy synecdoche among
The mesa, masonry and miso soup deniers,
With love letters that grandmothers tossed
Behind the shed like snakeskin, made this
Yard an Ararat and kitschy Nazca line – a
Trigger drawn just like a square hung up
In kitchens near Trafalgar – begging
Bless this Messianic Mess.