Bay Window Lauds

Cul-de-sac Pastoral The sill plays a cruel joke—thrones me. Frames me lording over lawn mower stripes—myself in a shallow trench. In grass blades. Myself persisting, despite a dickhead sun—me in chlorophyll. Early, I find myself swaying—me! in the black chokeberry, me! in the rabbit’s throat. Me, the rabbit. Me dancing out pellets. Out-dancing myself— my father’s pellet gun, the hawk. The joke is a bright belly full of dark hopping along my father’s garden & the joke small, between wrapped talons, is the hawking too, is the axe sun, swift, rising, this joy. This joy, it swallows itself far too soon!