A mule can hide all the world.
-A Proverb from the Storms
We have walked this June bug trail,
found the bugs like green-shelled bots
spliced with legs. They swirl upward
over the crabgrass, the clover and soot,
and flit away on their strange wings,
bobbling as if swept from a dream
that children steal from an orphan’s face.
We have dumped a basket of sour apples
in the old mule pasture. Hildy and Hagen
new married old, grave plots for Dencottles
who settled nowhere. You’d pick their puccoon
and smile at the flowers. I’d tromp some nettles.
Our children have become nobody crossing by.
We have spun pennies on a footbridge,
and laughed because they were all one-sided
fates, the most poor and silent talking heads
coppered up against God, even in our trust.
You said if gold could be pinched from presidents,
you’d still be footing all the splinters on this bridge.
So we have bet our pennies against each other
and somehow we keep ourselves arriving home.