Anti-Pastoral for Twenty-Faced Pathogen
Neither milkweed
nor rose-apple
in Schenck’s Anguish,
only a murder
of crows sprouting
at the perimeter
of a mother’s
suffering. Nature is
a near synonym
of cruelty—look
how I temple
its impure. Every
year, death-positive.
My kisses are
darts —I sweat
poison too heavy
for oleanders to carry.
In the quiet
of frost, death looks
on, wanting to be
important, & pulls
a lamb’s head
under tires. If not
a metaphor,
then foreknowledge.
As a carpenter, Jesus
made chairs, tables,
shelves—investigating, all
the while, the
role of nails
in forgiveness. In
Schenck’s Anguish, I
mistook a mother’s
roar for a screech.
Neither rose-apple
nor milkweed here,
only the long con
of anger. As if
anger could raise
the dead, stop my liver
from losing color.
I know you are here
for no reason
other than to
make my skull
a flowerpot—amaryllises,
lilies, tulips—
a realm of dread
& decay. As
if my roaring
could still
a cytokine storm.
Source: Poetry (January/February 2024)