Time to Kill
By Carl Rakosi
a man and his dog
what fun
chasing twigs
into the water!
young girls bicycle by
in pairs and plaid shorts
a wind so soft
one’s whole
back tingles
with cilia
a gentle lake
the sun boils
at the center,
radiates the zone
for man
and lays
a healing pad
across his nape
an airplane small and flat
as a paper model
roars behind
the Virgilian scene
an old man
tips his straw hat
down to shade
his eyes,
pulls up his fishline
and moves on
to a new spot
the poor small
wood louse
crawls along
the bark ridge
for his life
Copyright Credit: Carl Rakosi, “Time to Kill” from The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi (Orono: The National Poetry Foundation, 1986). Used with the permission of Marilyn J. Kane.
Source: The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi (National Poetry Foundation, 1986)