Tendrils

Hot dry June. Before driving
To watch his son graduate
He goes out to water the garden.

Tending the grape, his favorite.

Young vines cling like
Tiny green hands
To the fencewire—

Relentless, tugging, tugging.

He notes encroaching trees
Have blocked the sun, so
Snaps some branches, clears a spot.

He's gone! he thinks, and walks to the car.

In his throat something bubbles
Both bitter and sweet,
Like wine too long contained.

  

  

Abortion in the Woods

exploded
into a million matchsticks
or dropped (a clean dead log)
with one quick shot
and flushed down a river to Japan

brutal either way

the mangled roots
the womb bereaved
the life truncated
the aching mother
the bloody tools

  

  

Earth Day

An orgasmic shudder—must have been two whales
To reach his ears across a billion miles
Of space, where he's pulled off to rest in an eddy
And ready his weapon, between Io and Ganymede.

The ancient waves of pleasure make him desist
His preparations to unleash the beast
He's chosen to destroy the target planet,
A blue-green drop of water in the blackness.

He recollects the last time he stopped here—
A thousand years ago, and he discerned
His creatures burning each other in giant ovens,
The fumes of charred flesh stinking up to heaven.

Today, expecting they've not only killed
Themselves but all other created life as well,
He's returned to purge the dead and worthless
Rock from his yard, using a brilliant scourge.

But then the vivid cries of joy ascending,
And something fills his eye that he remembers:
The soft "Yes! Yes!" of April rain on lilies
Away down there—heads gently nod affirmative.

Relenting, he makes an entry in his ledger:
"Weapon not expended; visit next millennium."
Turns north and plots a course toward Orion,
Dragging his cheated comet still on its chain.