Poetry

Doing That Thing to the Field; There Came a Point in the Brutal Winter; Aubade with Bird; A Translation of Frogs


Doing That Thing to the Field

Fog lies down on a field though it’s

not the field sleeping. Maggot and leaf worm
fury all night. Early light

is a dust-up of light. And the fog,

to insist like that
isn’t cloud, isn’t heaven come to earth no matter

what it looks like.

Last, before bed, news on every channel
of news: the air show,

one clip, the crash

no sound at all. In human hands, the camera
skews it, the pilot old too.

And from a picture book of anything that flies,

how a child might draw a plane,
tiny black business behind each reporter’s

big talk talk—across, flaming down

a blunt right angle those
stations kept, keep playing

into dream’s little smoke.

Then the grandstand part,
the expensive box seats.

The fog, doing that thing to the field.

How could I know it was
out here. Already in afterlife when I thought

of coming out here.