MEG DAY
Aubade to Day
Last night I dreamt I’d forgotten my name
or driven it off like a fox through the split-rail
& into the long grass that can’t help but divulge
the direction of the wind. More than once,
I’ve been without—& more than once I’ve run
my padded bones along the braided bottom teeth
of summer, confusing heat with light & feeling
for the peak that christens predators with sharper
tongues than prey. There are some shades of night
so tender they swallow sound without chewing.
Pretend this is the first time you’ve seen me
crouch & tuck my hands under the resting scaffold
of a body limp with sleep, or worse. Pretend
your teeth don’t pull flesh from the peach’s pit
the way maggots eat around the tendons that hold
the heart inside the chest of the fawn felled by a fox
in the soundless down of that black yard. Where
is the sun! Look at the long grass open like a wound
where this small life left an even gentler night. Can
you see its blood across the door of my chest
like a promise? Can you hear me screaming my last
name into its neck as if it would turn the earth?
203 The Paris-American
Last night I dreamt I’d forgotten my name
or driven it off like a fox through the split-rail
& into the long grass that can’t help but divulge
the direction of the wind. More than once,
I’ve been without—& more than once I’ve run
my padded bones along the braided bottom teeth
of summer, confusing heat with light & feeling
for the peak that christens predators with sharper
tongues than prey. There are some shades of night
so tender they swallow sound without chewing.
Pretend this is the first time you’ve seen me
crouch & tuck my hands under the resting scaffold
of a body limp with sleep, or worse. Pretend
your teeth don’t pull flesh from the peach’s pit
the way maggots eat around the tendons that hold
the heart inside the chest of the fawn felled by a fox
in the soundless down of that black yard. Where
is the sun! Look at the long grass open like a wound
where this small life left an even gentler night. Can
you see its blood across the door of my chest
like a promise? Can you hear me screaming my last
name into its neck as if it would turn the earth?
203 The Paris-American
