Let the World Have You

The pond wore a thin blanket
of ice. The ice reflected
the surrounding trees.
A goose flew
overhead and appeared
on the screen of the ice
briefly, passing like a taxi.
There were yellow No
Trespassing signs and white
No Hunting ones.
The signs fantasized
about the activities
they forbid.
The ice fantasized
about being shattered
suddenly by something
heavy, like a piano.
The goose guarded
her fantasy — which involved
a doorway, her mother,
and a pile of bones
— carefully.
I fantasized
about not having
any fantasies, and in
so doing drifted
even further from the pond
 
+
 
because the young
people everywhere
wanted to be older,
the dinner party
wanted to be a raindrop, the sex
wanted to be a hug, the interior
to be the surface, the doorway wanted
to be a goose — and truly believed
it could be an excellent goose
if given the chance —
the tiny nervous
mouth sounds wanted
to be a symphony, the symptom
wanted to be the whole disease,
and at the end of the night
all the jokes that worked
secretly wondered
what it would have felt like
to be jokes
that did not.

+

Knock knock.
Who’s — help, please,
I’m trapped inside
of a script I wrote
for myself.
I can hardly feel
anything underneath
these absurd robes
I put on
each morning,
so heavy they are
if not killing me exactly
at least harming the sacred
rabbit who lives
inside me —
No, I’m fine
the rabbit calmly
takes a break
from cleaning
his paw to say.
Save your concern 
for yourself. And
those you love,
of course.
Okay, well.
I mean, yeah,
so the rabbit’s doing
okay. Which is great.
But still.

+

Still, if your life really
does turn out to be
a cycle of starting
fires, briefly
worshipping them
and then the next morning
sifting through the charred
remains for the most
mysterious little chunks
of wood burnt
black and shiny,
taking them home
and lining them up
on a shelf in your room —
I would like to take
this space to remind you
of the cat
in your grandmother’s story,
the one who gets caught
in a bear trap, comes home
a week later with her hind
leg mangled, bone visible
and surrounding flesh
infected.

+

This is rural
Finland, wartime,
with no vets around to call.
So the family dog — generously
or instinctively, I guess — starts to lick
the festering wound,
trying to clean it.
But days pass and
the leg won’t heal.
So finally this dog, gentle
as a nurse, takes the whole tibia
in his teeth
and pulls it
clean off. Probably saved
her life, your grandmother
laughs, putting
her fork down.
And yes, we can all
agree he was a good dog.
Good dog, good dog,
good dog,
good dog

+

but it’s the cat
I want you
to remember
(does any other
animal address itself, much less
disregard the note
of affirmation
it insisted on pasting
to the refrigerator door
each morning in a rush
while reaching for filtered water?).
The cat who knew
she needed help,
and sat still
so the dog could do
the unimaginable.

When all the bear trap wanted
was to be the leg around which
it closed.