Laura M. Nesbit – Two Poems

Laura M. Nesbit

Two Poems

Return, my Fingers’ Shepherd

i sleep in litter    stars gleam like forks   near an outlet, crystal radio we coiled the copper onto-                its songs broken,       hunchbacks in the rain-tacked wheat field,                             sits quiet now. scientists sketching fill my dreams,          their pencils’ scribbles sound like bees.      here                                                  onion-weltered air, onion-flesh                                                                       the pigeons scatter. they are sketching Venus,  puzzle over bright patch            as peak     or   sun   in cloud,                      coats dust-pocked like moon.        once, they knew, smiled in unison; bed full of papers rustled tender.                   i dreamt a bouquet of filaments. clutching glass for their lovers, bowerbirds pass. if finger tips        solder just so,                 wires will tell                                 the current Venus’s heat makes. i rise to dishwater rain.         your heat like Venus’s, i solder reveries     avoid one                                  your mouth    turned sugar    from boot soles. Stove: Mania, Math and Aftermath.                       – words taken from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass hills of sugar nudge stove door- burnt grains- quintillion; wheatless, groundless, spill- rustle lecture- I saw the bay flame with clover Came next day, found only snow- sky rained milk- i’d just linen to catch it- fever fever catching wringing- found it water- window after window, eggs smile from others’ tables- sugar grains muscle into my bed sheets- their teeth muzzle unsleep to boil- stove loafing in sugarhouse, put out- snow sweats in the wheatless, woodless presence. windless nights- hear it creak.