Mark Terry, “Ready to light the fire,” n/a, Noble Hill Anagama
The King of Perhaps
Standing in my yellowed, weed-ridden grass,
the gnats ate away, no one to blame but
my legs. Of all the things I could control,
the lawn wasn’t one — I was the king
of just enough, of should be happy, of perhaps.
The Roundup label said death.
This time its warning booklet only
gave me bad ideas. My favorite squirrel
dead from yesterday’s poison, there
at the base of the tree. How many of us
could stand such chaos right outside
their suburban door, with more
traffic than normal for a quiet Sunday
and somewhere in between
I tried to smile; I waxed my truck;
across the street neighbors yelled
enough for everyone, a cadence of curses
drowned out only by sprinklers, working
for once, a wet ratchet in my mind.
___________________
KG Newman