On the chocolate unreadable Des Moines River

rain’s fat worms draw bottom feeders

rising to sweaty light—eels and drum and catfish.

On the sediment bank smelling of rot,

coons and possums leave fresh tracks, and mosquitoes

swarm over carp carci, bleached and clean,

with tails and eyes eaten away.

Wisps of morning fog change little when forever

citizens have heard Iowa law saying no more carp,

or zebra mussels, or starlings, or purple loose strife--

that killing intruders is mandatory.

Satisfied crawdads come into the sun to explore

discarded fish feasts, then dig at castles,

and scurry backwards into holes.

Tethered to other lifetimes a thousand miles away,

in Blue Ridge freshness, not far from Blowing Rock,

the trout pool couldn’t breed soft shell turtles,

or river eels, or water moccasins; yet exposed in sun

is an obscene dissolving koi starved by drought.

An orange imported carp taking no

gulping breaths.

When Asian pets no longer own the flow,

everywhere the dead wash ashore, and water itself

decays, turning to poison.  When again will rain

smear boundaries, insisting lands leave proof?

When again, just for us, will water drip

from leaves, draining forever down

and around? 

Sex wet red bee balm way station

demanding attention,

so advertised, wooly visitors on one

frilled flower then another--

black, blue, spotted orange butterfly grope,

urgent swaying focused now.

Mature, better than art, red bee balm,

fanned by a hundred wings,

from a distance never dull in bright humid sun.

The only attraction again and again,

quick fluttering moves, like a communal

            racing breath over and over,

today’s finished movie, innocent tongued

touching, the fragile not yet fading,

a week’s memory already temporary sweet

exquisite need, the deepest

full season bloom, just as excess shifts,

preparing to collapse into itself.

A vulnerable mouth fears gouging

silver weapons designed to go deep.

Elevated feet, huge and mutant,

no help locked in dental chair tight.

Breathing races to panic, planning a flimsy

escape.  Such a shame, croons hygienist

crone, to lose the tooth, though gone already

is the brittle yellowed molar married

to soldered metal.

Deep in dark holes lies proof punishment

is exacted—that bleeding may or

may not stop.  Even now a fat tongue

investigates the abyss, seeking walls

of habit not easily forgotten.  Like the

hollowed log looking solid, smothered

in leaves, invaded by beetles, eaten

from within, the tooth so long lived

as mere shell, pretending to be strong.

Surreal time blinks pastel, automatic

doors opening to concrete bright. Shuffling

gauze holds back leakage, memory

of violence a spring flood hurling rocks

downstream.  Three hours later—hiding

behind the barn, shovel in hand, I am robot

missing parts, learning again to move, 

poking a smoking mound—congealed

leaves, last year’s manure.

March wind moves thin clouds quickly

away, the movie receding like childhood

memory.  A shiver realizing worlds

reshape without permission, sometimes

again becoming whole. 

Overnight strawberries mildew and soften,

and exquisite liverwurst, no longer centered

attention, turns cunning purple in the refrigerator.

Two bananas freckle on immaculate tile,

while a bruised peach colors, already

giving in to liquid dissolve.

Almost from the beginning airplanes in the toy room

have no hanger, and green/red/yellow

Lego buildings fall apart.  Summer heats,

then unravels upstairs in isolated rooms--

one powdered moth, lonely, munches hard won wool,

and, when noticed, even shiny plastic loses its sheen.

Still, in the cavernous barn a flannel shirt hangs,

unlabeled on a nail, thin dust softening

red blue quiet wild.  This weave clings in hot and cold,

accepting darkness, and rats, as swallows dart

in and around.  Again and again, a stab of sun,

horses staring with liquid eyes.

The mysterious rules behind the chosen--

mute—Verna at ninety two, blinking alert.

The car still cranking after fourteen years.

The indestructible photo slipping drawer to drawer.

The checkered flannel shirt in the barn, so far away,

waiting, each day insisting on forever.