Fringe Magazine - Issue 5 Archive

Issue 5: September 2006.
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Home > Issue 5: September 2006 > Poetry

Merganser Fishing

Atop a rippling sycamore—merganser!
White spades on a black teardrop head,
like an overripe domino the bird flips toward
the glassy terrain and break-plunges
into the muck.

A goose finds a summit
and stabs its split feathers
until a pudged down has emerged.
(This is satisfying, impossibly so,
to the grey bird.)

Sunbeams crash through the tree stretch,
and dribble between muck paths;
when the merganser dives its feet are illuminated,
great knobbed sticks behind a slick submarine.
Minnows swoop and furrow toward middle pond.

The grey goose watches a human, legs tucked away,
drab head and marvelous blue coat—a hunchbacked crane—
cleaning nothing, singing nothing,
dangling an elaborate worn stick,
wishing to pull something fighting from the murky golden pond.

The grey goose flexes its feet, flaps and unflaps its wings,
settles into its feathers and does not make a sound.
Merganser flips, sinks, and rises—flips, sinks, and
rises. A radiant path is opened. He follows
a single string down.

Cat, Drinking

When my cat is thirsty enough he’ll
sneak up to my bedside window
and sip from my bright green glass.
How it must glow, his eyes
thrust deep into that lime-plastic hollow,
his tongue smacking the surface
as the waterline stutters down, down.
Flick - Flick - Flick - pause (I have
murmured "floomph"
and rolled over)—
flick - flick - flick - flick - flick,
bud buckets bailing ribbons of the stuff
down his throat—measured washes, tiny broomsticks
dutifully brooming and he is imagining
falling into the great green sky.

Second Proposition

I have it in my head to be good to you
                                   (it has woken me up before)
It's an imperfect duty, I know
                                  (two hands or feet on the same color

                                  —a bit of protein before exercise)

When did safe travel become mundane?
                                 (it can be broken down)

Dear everyone
(make sure she knows you have a grip
on the theory)

with enormous wings:   Maybe I'll write with you in mind.

                                   (I will not list.)

white-marked spot—
(the "ought" disappears— )

Keep in mind where the story begins.