Jasmine Dreame Wagner, _hunters_ + _roots_ + _waitress (no.1)

.................................
hunters
.................................

when a lone goose cries out
to her kin across the mire,
she is calling to
her own wings,
willing them
to beat.

her lungs, enveloped in the
grave call,
are weak and oil-slicked,
her tawny beak gummed with
death's drum-black tar,
one violent cranberry eye
gapes skyward

does she blame?
perhaps
the season, too early
or the departure, too late

does she curse the five,
collective in flight?
the U,
V,
the I,
and their level, metered
breaths, white with condensation?

neither, I say, she is too wise
the last word comes with
truce in sleep:
for even brave men,
strong men,
good men,
will soon make
wise men with glazing-cranberry eyes

ainsi, you hounds, sharpshooters,
reveille!
and lie beneath your lamp-lit musket sky,
whose hail and rain makes
meat of men
there will be no rust on the
gates of heaven tonight

.................................
roots
.................................

thick palms, supple and seasoned
surround these bony hips, cover my
sharps with wooded moss
blooming kisses, perennial
blossoms with tubers
too deep to surface with an
ordinary trowel

you understand greenery, and seek to
cultivate it:
you forgave the gnarls and spikes
of my fragile lemon tree,
revealed her tender green veins, and
traced, lone finger hung low to the
ground, the evidence of roots
so thick
they clung like the nerves of a sturdy tooth

I had given her up for dead, and was
ready to uproot her
before you came along to stop me

as daylight wanes, we retire
from the garden
and like shadows unfolding across the
vacant floor, we lie on the carpet,
arguing over interior details.

I am a newcomer here, I say,
that is why I have no couch,
no chairs at my table;
I cannot afford the ample
leather sofa and ottoman that
comes as a set,
like yours.

you disagree.
I raise my palm, its five skinny fingers
tickling the pale green curtains, the way
a nose-full of summer grass tickles
both inside and out.

.................................
waitress (no.1)
.................................

along her slack cotton sleeves
caffeine stains, dark patches of Brazil
burn arm-hair stiff as quills

"you got what you came for,"
she says,

not what you ordered.

.................................
Jasmine Dreame Wagner
.................................

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