Keeping Out Flowers
Adonis has already arrived
in New York City.
This is what
my mother tells me.
It is not long then, I hope,
that he will show
his face over here,
in the middle of the country.
From my window,
three deer are resting
on what remains
of the snow.
Now, it is more like
small floats of ice
in a state-wide bed of mud.
But a sign:
hunting season is over.
So they afford themselves
a certain imprudence, no?
It’s luxury!
Craning tongues
toward those patches of
intractable hair—wily scruff—
then tossing their heads
about on loosened ground.
They must be resting
their blond flanks with good reason.
Perhaps cooling their swollen bellies
hot full of fawn.
Each delaying, however she can,
the habit of labor.
Here are the last girlish moments
before a mass
procreative swell—
I, too, am arrested by
this yet insatiable spring.
Fondling my bottom lip
to fog the glass just enough
to cloud out the small signs
of green,
for a few moments.
Adonis should stay away
for a while.
For the sake of my girls,
who need just a little longer
to mind themselves.