Rapid Rapid,

Time of the Fieldmice
Brian Swann
Poetry

An old crashed cicada dragster, hole in the roof
where they'd cut in and hauled the driver out
who, luminous, broke from their hands and,
veins swelling, whistled about the dark
perfumed season till, exhausted, he returned
to the place where fire sublimed, then folded
his wings inside his dull mummy while all round
was turning bare as a bombed-out airstrip
with odd clots of color in which the animals
recede to a core, tighter and tighter, waiting
for the wave to bounce back, scoured and solvent
from earth's outer edges. Now is the time
of the fieldmice who have eaten most of the seeds
and nibbled soap to arrowheads. Their cache
has not diminished at the bottoms of drawers,
down the backs of horsehair chairs,
at the bottom of the bed you lie in, listening
to the noise stars make on very cold nights.

// posted by Wang @ 10:42 PM