Into the Teeth of the Wind
Selected poem from Volume I, Issue 2
At Any Given Moment
they may come, the men
with their papers, their guns and caps,
the squeak of their shoes as they push leather
into flesh, take you
away. Here
pale roses flop over a crooked fence
wisteria with its heady fragrance
winds nonchalantly up an old pine
where an owl lights, tosses
that round sound we love to imitate into the night
the oooo reminding us of trust and safety,
our croons of love, cooing
to our children when their stomachs hurt
and when the owl turns its head
the sound of guns takes over
life runs
backwards, the owl flaps away.
On one screen at the gym,
oh but where else, where we get in shape
for the next century, flatten
those abs for whatever comes, parents sob
for the children shot in a nice town
in a free country, mom holds a sign splotched
with black paint STOP THE MADNESS.
Right beside her on another screen, a man
dressed in brown muslin and a really old wool cap
maybe handed down from his grandfather
pulls a lifeless body from a scraggled bush —
not a rose, not a vine —
at any moment they may come
to our door and give us papers,
those squeaky men
and we better grow some wings.