I stay silent. Birds in the morning
seek sweeter sources for yearning.
Anything better than the human voice.
Flute, violin, any plucked treacle, I weep.
I had the inkling to withdraw, always.
The privileged have hedges, oh, dark hedges.
If you live long enough your country
makes you sad or mute or a liar.
Founding Fathers, right there, a problem.
No patriot, I find all humanity weepable.
But I told you that. Did I tell you fireworks
boom all night in dress rehearsal?
My dog hops the rim of the bathtub
to hide as if advised of hurricane.
Her eyes large and brown, her face long
and as full of reproach as Lot’s wife.
Not that Akhmatova likens a wife’s eyes
to a dog’s but I do. I don’t forgive that god.
What Is stirs in this heat. Thick leaves flick.
Shade-aproned trees mark circles of abandon.
Consider me a witness. I’ve seen grass levitate.
Neon blades rise, diaphanous. Consider me
a woman among women, bodies so spirit-
crammed they want to strip you like a deep forest.
They want you to say, How do you like me now?
They want you to dance on earth that only birds own.
They say, Salomé, you like to be controlled.
They’ll never give up guns, they envy wombs that much.