Two Poems

Hereafter

I’m looking for something that isn’t there,

and out of the trees the rain comes singing

down a bucket of years. Let be, say the whispering trees

to the possessive wind moving its liquid bed of sand

from one house to another. That world ended,

but out there was the hereafter. Oh sorry luck, I was happy,

and as the water overtook us, we argued

about the water overtaking us.

I Believe it was Dorothy Who Produced My Children

Everywhere I go I’m the slow kid with the grin beginning—

dried monsters on toast, even my love’s in little grooves.

Here’s a whiteness to repeat it, whiteness to fear,

a colour aloof in the ear of household pleasantries.

The latch rewards the fence, which otherwise goes merely

warm, an adventure of fetching.

Freakishly large, I’m left behind,

lost milk on a night of lost dogs,

false air discharged from the hospital of its fleas.

It seems to place one hand on top of the other.

It has no hands and these

are not my kind of people, these stairs.

These are not my naked toesy feet.

These are not two deaths bothering

each until there’s three, but

several of them invented me.

We stopped one on the road, entertaining.

Other children were present as information.

More rain bundled in collapsing coverage.

An evacuation arrived all boned and stubbled under.

Could you please comfort me excessively?

Reality’s always doing something rude and necessary.