DEAD LEAF BOUQUET
What a strange thing to give someone
just out of the hospital! But here comes Maeve
with four brown leaves and a spiky twig
bound with blue yarn. The twig for measuring.
Measuring what? How quickly I’ll get better,
of course, and do I know what an abacus is?
Another way of measuring. And Roman numerals.
She doesn’t feel at all sorry for me because
I can write a poem in bed about the dead leaf bouquet,
while she has to go to school, so goodbye.
—from Rattle #36, Winter 2011
Tribute to Buddhist Poets
__________
Chase Twichell: “I have a very low tolerance for decoration in poems. And some people love it; they want to read pages and pages of how the everglades look in a storm and so on and so forth. But I increasingly am of the school or the belief that we don’t have very much time and poems should do their work fast and get out.” (webpage)