Monthly Archives: December 2015

I was sent by God

To test your lovingkindness.

Jesus is not pleased.

The grass is always

Diamond-dazzle white

Or wet with emeralds.

The great blank sky

Stares back in blue.

 

Inside, the quilt smells like whining,

And me, the boy who naps in sweet and salt.

A bowl of daffodils shouts yellow

Against a wall of grief.

The dog lifts her golden head

Because she knows her boy

Has excess love to give.

 

Real men have stripped this land,

Drilled mudroads deeply into firs.

The hills are finally cleared of ash and alder,

Other trash trees,

First trash peoples.

 

It’s all mine, I know,

Unless I blow my cover

Unless they discover

This queerness at my core.

I’m one limp wrist from becoming

The white man’s error apparent.

I can be vanished, too.

 

What doors have I had to lock

To block that blank?

So easy to slam a door,

To keep the calendar from flipping back.

But so much is lost if I lose the hills.

I have to hang onto the diamonds, the emeralds,

The stinging spring stink of daffodils.

 

My work is just as hard as those

Who cleared and killed and logged.

I’m the heir who must perform

Two brutal chores.

Take out the garbage. Let in the dog.