Still Life: Interior
It is not me I’d wish
this forlorn barn
to contain, this shell become
over time translucent:
pale light allowed to break
through siding boards
as frail as lacewings. So Now,
I resolve, like the poet,
I’ll do nothing but listen. But sounds?
Not one arrives.
No hooves stir in mildewed straw,
for instance. The roof
doesn’t creak as it bellies up,
isn’t solid, encasing
a cloud of steam – the redolent
breaths of cattle.
If only a poem could be written
to render, or summon,
a rebirth here: that coon-hide
might be reclaimed
from mice, again cloaking a body
long since ripped out;
or hay bales moisten once more
high in the mow;
or gaskets grow plump in the pump,
restored from dryness,
like sea stars rescued from sand
by a tidal surge;
or skating insects gather
their shadows back
to the stock trough, filled
with the old cold water.