Hard-Hat
Hawks roosting in a neighbor’s sycamore
attack her every time she leaves her house.
The second that she opens her front door
they swoop down on her with their talons out.
Year after year they nest in her tree,
returning every spring to raise their chicks.
She’s intruding on their territory,
and they’re unfazed by her scare-bird tactics—
a plastic owl that hoots when it’s approached,
a sun reflecting, glittering piece of foil.
They scream, dive, and claw at her face and throat
when she’s out in her garden, spading soil.
“They charge too much to take away the nest,”
she claims when asked why she doesn’t pay
Bird-A-Way to get rid of these pests
(they specialize in nuisance hawks and jays).
She says, “Three hundred dollars is too much.”
Instead, she dons a hard-hat when she leaves.
They dive, they claw, but talons cannot clutch
the rigid plastic. They try and try to seize
her head and rip it off but always fail.
She cultivates and waters and plants seeds—
lettuce, basil, rosemary, and kale.
Finally, they soar back to their tree
to guard their nest from other birds of prey,
and she goes back inside to make iced tea
and watch them from her kitchen. They fly away
in fall so that, at last, hard-hat free,
she can safely rake her fallen leaves—
how boring, though, without her enemies.
Ring
My wedding ring keeps slipping off my finger.
Yesterday it got stuck in the dough
that I was kneading. I almost fed my ring
into my hand-cranked pasta noodle roller.
Each time I shower, I have to make a fist
to keep the ring from sliding down the drain.
I’ve dropped it in the sink when washing dishes
and found it in my pocket after rain
forced me to jam my wet hands in my jeans.
The strange thing is, when I first tried it on,
it snagged on a knuckle. Back then it seemed
a size too small. “I guess I’ll never pawn it
even if my love decides to leave me,”
I told the jeweler. “No need for a box—
I’ll wear it.” “I’ll size it up for you for free.”
“No thanks, it’s fine. I like the way it locks
itself in place—I’ll never take it off
except when I go swimming in the Med.
On honeymoon, in Nice, that’s how I lost
the ring that this ring will replace,” I said.
Now that my chubby fingers have grown lean,
I guess I should secure this precious gold—
its price has soared about a hundredfold—-
but “downsizing” sounds so awfully mean.
To keep it safe, my only other option
is slide it off and hide it in a drawer,
which contradicts what wedding rings are for—
to show that I was worthy of adoption
way back when I was plumped with collagen,
and that, though bony, I’m so affectionate
my lover cannot bear to trade me in
for someone young and cuter. So I’ll let
this ring stay on my finger insecurely,
though losing it would cost me very dearly.
Identity Crisis
Unrecognized by Facial Recognition—
my passport photo didn’t match my face
staring at the ID Verification
Automated Screening Out Device—
I stood between two locked plastic gates
pleading with Airport Security
to screen me with a human being’s eye.
“Madame, please look—don’t I resemble me?”
“Look at the screen, Monsieur.” I tried and tried
to make my face look like my photograph,
taken at the PO recently.
I frowned, I squinted, I glared, I grinned, I laughed.
At last a supervisor set me free
to Luggage Screening, where my backpack failed
the auto X-ray screen and got derailed
to undergo a test for TNT.
And then the screeners let me leave Paris—
at least I’m pretty sure that it was me.
Paradise Lost
Reading Milton’s like swimming in molasses.
His Heavenly Muse drones on; it doesn’t sing.
His Satan soars towards Earth on leaden wings.
He bores the Hell out of my Great Books classes.
Dante’s tortures make my students laugh.
They like to dream up torments. Circle Ten:
Chained to their desks, forever reading Milton.
Teaching the Inferno is a blast.
So why do I teach Milton every fall?
A brilliant teacher, forty years ago
Sparked a flame that made his verses glow.
I try to channel her. She’d be appalled.
Judith, you should teach my class today.
You made reading Milton seem like play.