Ark in the Field
One morning you open
one eye and listing to the south
it bulks like a barn,
noiseless, derelict
planks horizontal and deeply grooved.
A rudder the size of your front door
pivots as you push. Once
inside you can smell
the fear of every winged,
creeping and four-legged thing:
no water, no straw,
just shadow and bare wood.
Where is the one promised
to wake beside you forever?
Ox-eyed daisies, goldenrod, clover—
why are you breathing
among them, why don't you gather
the outcast beasts or become one...
Copyright Credit: Joyce Peseroff, "Ark in the Field" from Eastern Mountain Time. Copyright © 2006 by Joyce Peseroff. Reprinted by permission of Carnegie Mellon University Press.
Source: Eastern Mountain Time (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2006)