song birds take a bath in our elephant pool
turtles don't come to our turtle yet
sunflower cytology apprehend the weeds in our garden
cytologies you mean & well there's poison ivy
as in drew barrymore or
dream creatures knocking at the window
threatening to kill you on a snowy road
and now the luna moth creeps along as creeks bring
blue herons flying into flower
watches like herons nesting oh! what mayhem
we behold, so many Gnostic beings landing at our
doorstep ready to start something or else
there'll be a rainbow or parhelion or fire or
with the party to put an end to hunger as they say
in the old days and should we have a rent strike
à la hoag's corners? what wilt thou?
frogs and bugs and little dead farm animals in the
hay, oh hell i've lived in new york city
i know about dead beings like all get out
of the sidewalks and burning buildings along with
the living tho the living usually stay unless they're
          the living dead

From Scarlet Tanager. Copyright © 2005 by Bernadette Mayer. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.