In the summer of
our discontent
poison ivy whispers
upon the skin –
take me with you
brother –
and so begins the
wallowing in
heat without
the water’s edge.
All the sky
and water
and earth
are nothing
but a shadow
of a mother
who paints us
with love
anyways, for
cruelty lies
in the sequence
of our genes,
all of history
a tic, a quirk,
the merlin chasing
peregrine
over the pond
where the bounty
finally dies and
is forgotten by its
predators.
Perhaps it is
a bufflehead,
hiding now
among the reeds,
waiting
for the vulture
to cycle the DNA
into something new.
Our genes are
moving on –
this is life
over and over
again, giving us a
taste of death,
sweet death.
Anne's mediocre poetry 