AN OWL TREE

Suddenly there is no one left I wish to talk to,

The click of feathers and hollow bones,

The bird away, the dog excited.

The air heavy with rain

the bluest wet sky 

and in this place where no breeze blows,

no breeze blew.

Listen:

the branches of the great trees are talking to each other,

their leaves folding into one another,

and the moon slips behind a clash of consonants,

a sudden lurch of lightning

and after a day of heat and sunlight,

night comes with water

and wind.

Sit outside with me a moment.

You can finish your chores tomorrow.

Tonight is a time for the movements of air,

a dialogue of branches,

the conducting of clouds,

and if we get wet, no matter,

I am in your debt.

THE DIVORCE

 

knocked the earth out of me,

thick clods, mud worn,

blood listing from the Bodhi tree,

 

so I took the bones and planted them

in the grass filled yard of leaf and wind

near the place where breathing comes easy.

JACK FROST SLEEPS WITH GOLDILOCKS

 

Cold sleeps in the room with Beauty

rearranging itself into frost giants and lumberjacks.

Snow White is still in development,

and Loki—well, he’s already a myth.

This I know: Beauty sleeps under twenty blankets

and always feels the pinch of the pea; grows her hair 

long enough to cut, and cuts it; carries fresh meat pies 

through the forest to lure wolves to their death 

and skins them; and when she falls asleep in her brass bed,

the cold remains, unremitting, like a poisoned apple,

like a hundred year sleep, like a broken glass slipper

Humpty Dumptied into so many pieces 

no prince in love can glue it back together again.

Michael H. Brownstein