- David Wagoner
I was trying to find my voice
under a fir tree and scribble
and scrath something more
or less like it onto a page
but she came down halfway
from her crosshatched jumble
of sticks and seaweed, wedged
near the broken crown,
and explained her situation
with grinding ckucks, tut-tuts,
and insincere chuckles,
as if forgiving the rudeness
of a first offender, a violator
of rules maybe too difficult
for dim-witted outsiders
to take in, to get a grasp on
without official help. We stared
at each other. She decided
I might be hard of hearing
or somehow hopelessly challenged,
dropped to a lower branch,
and leaning forward
for emphasis, began cooing
to an idiot child, then barked,
had a brief asthma attack,
warmed a very bad boy
(who'd just disgraced himself)
never to do it again,
and after some teasing lip smacks
and a one-legged squat,
in case I was simply speechless,
gave me a death rattle.
poro carbón
