You were sent up the road
to pick centrifugal daisies with Aunt Peggy,
out of earshot of your mother’s scream;
or your mother pulled the vox humana stop
to muffle shot and squeal;
and the germander is sprouting casually,
greening on ashes.
Where is Sibyl?
The finches peck clean the feeder.
Wind sweeps the hulls down on the gravel.
New nests, new generations. . . .
At their window I gloom, old Abraham.
The groceries are delivered.
People keep on eating.
Halliard setting the empties
in the truck marries watch and crates.
No number of baby sisters
no amount of fresh spareribs
can mollify this double-cross.
As something is, perhaps, balanced
in the outer universe,
satisfied,
why do I keep on fighting germander and cosmos?