Environmental Impact Statement
My anger’s a ditch filled up by a hundred rains; green scum rimes the edges, insects clutter the sticky air. A long, rutted road twists through a field to the ditch; moist toads crouch in the grass, the heat unwinds a secret snake. You are at one end of the road; I am at the other. We ignore the anger, pretending to get warts from a toad, temptation from a serpent. The truth is, we have loved our littered words too much. To drain this ditch is expensive. It will leave a scar on the land.
Another Silence
Everyone gone silence is free to slide out from under chairs from inside shoe boxes to be itself. Released it fills all recently held spaces and weaves across the lacy air. The woolly quiet comes to me on soft belly hairs creeping over carpet glad to forget the children’s wars the machines that never stop the slight shaking of the earth. Daylight silence is spotted with sound distinct patches laid on with a true ear the coarse bending of air by lawn mowers the chop of a slammed door the dull clef of the refrigerator. We are only deaf in concentration furry with thoughts that muffle and insulate. True silence curls inside each idea caught by some meaning at its nucleus like a gentle animal waiting for its master to open the gate.
