It's National Poetry Day today. The theme is stars. Here's one by me, for you...
Conjunctions
Jupiter and Venus hung like grapes in the
evening sky,
frozen and untwinkling,
You could have reached and up
and picked them.
And the trout swam.
Snow muffled the world,
silenced the dog,
silenced the wind...
The man said, I can show you
the trout. He was
glad of the company.
He reached into their tiny
pool, rescued a dozen, one by one,
sorting and choosing,
dividing the sheep from the
goats of them.
And this was the miracle of the
fishes,
that they were beautiful. Even
when clubbed and gutted,
insides glittering like jewels.
See this? he said, the trout heart
pulsed like a ruby in his hand.
The kids love this.
He put it down, and it kept
beating.
The kids, they go wild for it.
He said, we feed the guts to
the pigs. They're pets now,
They won't be killed. See? We
saw,
huge as horses they loomed on
the side of the hill.
And we walk through the world
trailing trout hearts like dreams,
wondering if they imagine
rivers, quiet summer days,
fat foolish flies that hover or
sit for a moment too long.
We should set them free, our
trout and our metaphors:
You don't have to hit me over
the head with it.
This is where you get to spill
your guts.
You killed in there,
tonight.
He pulled her heart out. Look,
you can see it there, still beating. He said,
See this? This is the bit the
kids like best. This is what they come to see.
Just her heart, pulsing, on and
on. It was so cold that night,
and the stars were all alone.
Just them and the moon in a
luminous bruise of sky.
And this was the miracle of the
fishes.
Labels: National Poetry Day, poetry