The Haunt

I float in spider-silk arabesques

from branch to branch.

You can hear me hush-land

on your well appointed lawn:

Hydrangea and Japanese maple,

dogwood, bombilla,

bouquet of scotch bonnets

simmering in a white plastic planter.

The paint-chipped garage door,

the suburban earth floor—

soil and oil and tar and grass.

The old elementary school

beckons and I enter

through a cracked window.

Inside, bulletin-board sketches

curl their corners, pink erasers

go dry. I write my name

on the board backwards.

And you, love, you exit your house,

in the early morning, not adjusted

to daylight. You breathe me in,

surprised. Oh, that’s where you’ve been

all this time. With me in it, your head

feels cleaner than before. We walk

to the park where it is your job

to polish the brass, paint the wood

the brightest white. I dance three times

around the gazebo. It’s outdoor concert

season. I’m looking for teenagers,

their furtive remnants: jacket, hairbrush,

brown and white autumn of cigarette butts.

I rock the bandstand’s metal posts.

You think it’s the wind.

I miss this the most, warm September.

A big band night, a crowd that swings.

Everyone forcing their beauties to shine.

Copperhead

Royal, radiant

from atop your self-made throne

you uncoil, welcome

me. Your angular

jaw dances, rides currants

of scent. Do you sense

the pulse in my veins?

The copper in me calls to

the copper in you.

Jelly

When I saw the half-inflated

cellophane sac, I waited stupidly

for the swell of breath,

like human lungs. 

The sun skated

off the dying hemisphere,

pulled the light into severe

opalescence

over the boneless body.

Parents told serrated truths.

The story of a girl

just like you

who was stung

because she wasn’t careful—

her leg inflated, red

and redwood-sized.

I tried to reconcile the image

with all that was left

on the beach:

pink-purple aura

that vanished

when the sun winked

behind a cloud,

the body, too far ashore

for the tide to reclaim it.