PoetryMagazine.com now in the 23st year online Terri Muuss

Travel Across Borders

Now, on rainy school-bus

days at the curve of manicured

driveway, I watch my sons save

earthworms, fling them into soft

mud, relief echoing

in thuds of grass—

how these boys do not

know of sink holes

formed after rain.

I remember my school

face, alone and numb behind glass

and diesel, the weight of sturdy

rain boots, magnets dragging

my feet as I trudged

away from knowing—

a thousand fists in my mouth. I already

understood: there is only one way

an elbow can bend.

Through cold splattered

windows I watched huge puddles

roll by, where garbage

floats like abandoned

kayaks. What river would take

me? I wormed in my seat

waiting for someone

to cup my limp

worry, my body bending

like a straw.

Time Travel With Shovel

Each memory—a jet crossing summer sky.
How many barrels must I frantically fill with flowers?
What rainstorm will bend this iris until it can not rise?

After the wreck, only the mechanic knows the realigment needed.

Noiseless, beetle-legs on crocus petals leave an opening.

I dig in the garden, plant pumpkin seeds for fall.

Watershed

Clouds are pregnant

with rain and gunpowder.

Somewhere:

rows of orange-

cupped flowers.

Somewhere:

scab of hands

with picked fruit; procession

of eyes filled

with coins; a child’s ashen

body smeared with semen; soldier’s white-

knuckled glossy face; gaunt wild

inside a mother

Notice:

worms writhing in puddles; the wind’s twisting,

chattering arms; a knot of cockroaches

at the ceiling; the lone hawk spiraling

the limestone walls of Grand Canyon,

circling down to a river

that pushes

its way.

---

What Is Left

Nothing is empty

anymore. We fill

the exposed

field with a townhouse,

our bellies with abstracted

death, the blank

space in a column

with our version of

truth.

We are afraid

of silence and the unknown,

the toad in the palm

of our hand, waving

grass in the outfield

of an unkempt baseball

diamond.

Bring your empty

bags and let them

sit. Let your

barrows fill with

rain. Time is not

poetry. It is

rose and the thistle—

the hummingbirds’

invisible wings.

Hungry

A steel-blue storm outside—I want you

to come home. Mason jars catch

rainwater from rushing

gutter pipes, my black ink bleeds

into paper. For ten years, your breath

has eased its way into

my lungs. I imagine our legs,

vines reaching, toes open as

petals. Or tonight it could be

a delicate press against

the scalloped edge of my satin

slip. How soft is

the landscape of

possibility? The clock neglects

me. The electric hum of

telephone poles outside. I tap

the egg on the waiting

pan. Translucent cold stings my

fingers. Every instant without

your touch, the poverty

of my hands. I sit inside

the pooling hours.

—appears in the book by the author, Over Exposed.