• Katharine Coles

 

Hawk

 

Be a creature whose one will is life.

Grosbeaks and buntings fuss around the feeder

 

Of one mind: to eat together and drop

Back into the trees.  Be a leaf

 

Turning under wind, willing

To be shuffled and nosed by bees, no reason

 

Not to be known.  Give over as moose

Does to largeness and smell or

 

Like the dogs to voice or the continuous

Nuanced alphabet the weasel’s long tail

 

Draws across the grass; lift on evening

Updraft, one eye on the ground, heart

 

Rising with the body, carried—

Hold the body hard.

 

 

 

Thirst

 

Her mother fasted and vanished

As will mine.  A form of self-

 

Mummification, my grandmother

Lying as I last saw her, dried to sinew, flesh

 

Bruised with anger that would not stop

Marking her from inside.  Many waters cannot

 

Quench love.  Will, then.  It cannot be accomplished

Impulsively.  Before she began, she broke

 

Her hip, or hip

Broke under her

 

Small weight.  Self losing

Itself falls into the hands of others

 

Meaning well.  Eschew determinedly.  Passing

Hunger, give up coffee.  Last, surrender

 

The highball taken every evening

For seventy years.  Love is better

 

Than wine, though even alone,

She put on lipstick. Water-starved, entered

 

Her swoon.  For I am

Sick in love.  Get one thing

 

Right: wet lips and tongue, do not

Swallow.  It would be a personal assault

 

For someone to force water.  Still, I would

Cause thee to drink of the juice

 

Of my pomegranate.  What gets transmitted,

In what order.  In truth I already sense

 

A bit of headache, cramp

Coming on.  All ages may feel sudden

 

Head rushes, dizziness.  The body swings

A hundred windows wide to blow in

 

Cold delirium.  Brace.  Self, I could be

Flooded, scoured by air.  Ravished

 

My heart.  Given

Lightness imagine flight.

 

 

 

Narrative

 

Outside my window

Leaves cling to their branches, all yellow’s

 

Colors, refusing to fly until they do.  Where am I

But lost in a thicket of details, not knowing why

 

The red shoe lies on the carpet, its tongue

Lolling out, or whose back is vanishing

 

Out the side door. Is anyone home, I call

Into an empty room.  Are you coming back?

 

 

 

Lunar Eclipse

 

Lying in bed your shadow moves.  Lying

Thinking your shadow

 

Flies across the moon’s face.  Say time

To rise.  In the dark

 

Down here in brush and grass

Small bodies pulse.  Almost awake.  Say

 

Blink.  Naked eye

Watches the moon vanish, but

 

Your cheap camera made

For talking keeps seeing

 

A singular shining orb, not

The giving way, showing

 

A black field.  You

Are talking to yourself

 

Again.  Why won’t you

Settle for your eyes, memory

 

Failing?  Be a warm

Body without devices, watching

 

The lapsed moon darkly

Sail the hills.  It’s too early to call

 

Anyone and you’ve nothing

Going.  Ghost ship, shadow

 

Wolf, self-smudge.  Since before

You were time you’ve felt

 

This way.  Close your eyes

Then.  I say Close your eyes.