Was beauteously, bulbously huge—redundant
as a luminous moon—puffed and balled,
seized by Uncle Richmond from the deep woods,
plucked with both hands and brought
to the doorstep for our amazement
and accolades, and to be sliced and fried,
tasting like nothing but slightly singed butter,
which we happily shared back then, several years
before he collapsed on the porch at 85
with a heart attack, having driven forty miles
from Petoskey home clutching his chest,
sweat streaming after the meeting
where the argument was made to inject
toxic wastes under the “perfectly safe” shelf
of rock to mingle in the underground seas and sift
slowly out to the Great Lakes as has happened
before. He stood and said so, hands shaking
more than usual, so that on the dark road home
he had to stop for a minute near King’s Orchard
then drive on, legs finally giving way
on his own front porch, Lee luckily hearing
something like a branch falling, so he survived,
lean and leaving to range through the forests
after the fantastical and favor us with the tale
of it, again, or occasionally with the whole thing,
harbored and carried into our presence,
a careful joy, mysteriously magnified, come
upon as if the earth had started suddenly over.
from No Need of SympathyFind it in the library
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