Rumble on Mt. St. Helens, Yellowstone, rumble. We cannot cure
the common cold or wash off our mothers’ sins.
The weather feels like the earth will open beneath our feet and who can say
that we would not find freshwater seams. The sacrifice of the maiden
brings forth good crops, persuades death to release his grip on buried things. Personally, I wish I saw some beauty in the season-blown grain,
The currency of life renewed, or in the marigold dew of wary goslings,
birds ever undying. At the foot of the Cascades, a town without rain
Built all of reinforcements, gas tanks capped to keep out ash, the mayor cuts
a ribbon. A widow wants two fives for a ten.
A rafter of turkeys fattens in my yard. As if disaster is avoidable.
My dog wants you to know that Timmy’s in the well again.
(as originally published by Floating Bridge Press in his 2015 Chapbook, My Idea of Fun)