The Pond Museum
The fenestrate surface of the pond
surfaces in old companions snag ripples
namely, Saburo
I recommend his face for the pond museum
above the fox’s skulking face
the hare’s face, death’s polished stone
the crane’s larval pearl
eyes transmitting the code for a sodden voice
in the splintering reeds
And when I say I recommend
I mean the menagerie in the utmost dark
saviors hung from supping trees
gone the way of idiot flesh—where you
were endowed with a chance, and fucked up
Evening, I went down
on the pantry, pried open
a basket of rice cakes, grew
partial to eating in the dark
if only to concentrate the sound
of walking through the wilderness
at night, enlarged
without people
as wax I sleep in nectar
When was the flora brass
A woman kneeling among cranes
Willows waiting
for sticks to arrive
to burn cranes from her body
genital
wind through which
No, it has always been this way
blooms erupting
suspicion, husband
making sure each dawn
the sticks stay lashed to his back, the wood
she waits for
thin as blades, and cut as close
To fallow soil
sea dragon in hand
proper, yes, though petrified
crimson, pink, indigo, green
purple and yellow lotus
cradle in the hedgerow
I feel
faint exceptionally
hot here on the ground
Should I be sweating this much?
Should the sea dragon weigh so heavily?
Bronze skin festooning the trees
cutting a spirit loose?
Carrion flowers
slip
from my hand
Copyright Credit: Brandon Shimoda, “The Pond Museum” from O Bon. Copyright © 2011 by Brandon Shimoda. Reprinted by permission of Litmus Press.
Source: O Bon (Litmus Press, 2011)