We walk downtown for dinner. Thai.
On the sidewalk, a curlicue of ants.
The worm they swarm is still alive.
I’m hungry, you say, and stamp.
from BugleFind more by Tod Marshall at the library
Copyright © 2014 Tod Marshall
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.
Four does and a buck haunt the neighborhood
At night this winter, scavenging pears
And apples, rooting compost bins, a clear
Sign of suburban sprawl my Green Friend said
At a benefit dinner for Watershed
Restoration. She’s probably right. She cares
Deeply about these things, Warming, and Fair
Trade, local/global stuff. She gave me head,
Later, in her Prius, and when they came,
My moans were muffled. Wiping up, she seemed
Perturbed and started the car. “What’s wrong?”
I regretted the question. She must have blamed
Me for something. “You. You’re so fucking tame.
You can’t even let loose while getting blown.”
from BugleFind more by Tod Marshall at the library
Copyright © 2014 Tod Marshall
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.
Water buffalo guts spattered and strung over boulders and scrub trees, splatted in one especially grotesque pile at the rocky bottom of the cliff. Doug, the cart driver (he chose an American name to ease the tourist’s anxiety over pronouncing Phuc) was drunk, and the steep zig-zagging mountain trail steeply zigged and zagged, and that’s about it: Kate, the American, and her husband, Richard, leapt clear and took these photos hung on First Friday when the galleries offer wine, crackers, cheese, and a plastic tray of fruit. Even in black and white, the intestines glisten like oozy scarves draped over the rounded belly and sloping back, one horn dangling by a few tendons. And there’s that one of Doug, his toothless face unmistakably laughing—“We’d asked him for a refund if he wasn’t going to be able to take us deep into Virachey National Park,” Kate explained and explains again and again over the course of the evening. A water buffalo climbs a mountain, slips on scree at the edge of the path, twists against a yoke, and then takes to air, hurtling 154 feet. I want to know who butchered the body, who chopped up the steaks. I want to ask, “What happened to the meat?”
from BugleFind more by Tod Marshall at the library
Copyright © 2014 Tod Marshall
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.
Soon this northern city will be just another aisle,
stacks of ketchup and racks of white blouses
within spitting distance. They invite you in,
say have a nice day, greeters charged to help
find what you’re looking for: just milk
and bread. Pay the plastic fee, slide a card,
and get to the list of chores. I’m pouring concrete
into many holes, letting it dry, trying to finish
before the first hard freeze, steel poles sticking
straight up.That pile of boards? Call it a fence.
from BugleFind more by Tod Marshall at the library
Copyright © 2014 Tod Marshall
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.
No apples on the Braeburn tree. Some years, they
do that, you say. Your father, the expert gardener,
told you so. I’m gloomy. I see portents, doom,
disaster. Our neighbor mows his lawn every third day.
His name is Gideon, and he claims that someone
named a lamp after him. Click goes the switch.
Start the mower: upside-down helicopter
chopping grass instead of sky. Meanwhile,
the pinwheel across the street, among daisies,
daffodils, and a towering sunflower, spins
like a turbine just before takeoff, passengers
fastening belts, actually listening to advice, learning
how to float on something that’s supposed to be a seat.
from BugleFind more by Tod Marshall at the library
Copyright © 2014 Tod Marshall
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.
Rhubarb shoots
spiking from the muddy yard
like bloody, broken bones,
like bad teeth. The leaves
grow wide and poisonous.
The sour stalks
burn calories to digest.
Eat only them, and you will starve.
from BugleFind more by Tod Marshall at the library
Copyright © 2014 Tod Marshall
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.
He drags a stringer of sunfish at dusk,
one fat bass at the end of nylon cord
looped through dirty gills, and slips by his mother
(watching TV) to fill the tub and dump
stiff fish afloat with shampoo bottles, soap,
and a bright yellow duck. What is hope?
A sharp tug that proves he chose the right jig?
A shore where only children shout? How big
a channel cat or bass might be? His damp clothes
dry on the towel rod. A hush replaces
dusk. He sleeps in a chair. His mother
cleans the tub. A family is hard scale
on which to weigh the keepers, a cutting board
covered with guts, a slit from gills to tail.
from Poetry Northwest 06.1 Spring & Summer 2011More by Tod Marshall from the library
Copyright © Tod Marshall
Used with the permission of the author
on behalf of Poetry Northwest.
