January 25, 2015Realism: For an Infant Doused in Gasoline
The storm front on the news that seemed improbable
appears at the sky’s edge, a simple lie uncovered
like a book hangs from the shelf, pulled out
enough to see. A tooth is pushing through
my baby’s gum, and somewhere the reported crime
spree of two teenage
lovers left a family carless. My wife
found some unknown pods
beneath the park’s brush, but I only wondered
when she’d make me feel less
ugly at a touch. They say
a woman set her child on fire, and I can’t
picture it beyond the graininess of old
cartoons: funny animal, the fumes
light too when your cigarette can’t wait. A tooth is pushing
through my baby’s gum: a mouth no longer known
incapable of biting. She wasn’t where she said
she was, but later, found
those plants are milkweed. I just hear poison,
like a field guide
through a lazy eye. The little objects’
uselessness will go unmentioned, red block
covered in saliva still a comfort. An unfamiliar odor
drifts down in the boy’s crib, and then the distant
rumbling: they say, the state of the union
is strong.
from Poets Respond