12-07-2013, 04:58 PM
Entropy
Big scared eye, pink, dumb,
And unobtrusive as a broken clock.
Shocked, I drop him as he tears my arm.
He thumps his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because
My brother’s come back home, numb.
Talks about how he talked to his wife today about the law,
Of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps
His way into the kitchen for a beer. We don’t have any.
Once, when wolves would eat the sick, it was
A better world. Now we have guns,
Doctors, ammo, medicine, and entropy
Alone we trust to kill us,
Passively.
I was cutting the hedge at noon today when I saw
The slim end of a tail slide over broken
Holly leaves, drifting slowly,
Poorly camouflaged. It was Christmas, and I thought,
It’s cold out. Snakes should all be under rocks,
Hidden. And I wondered what had woke him
And scared him from his hole, and I thought,
Can a snake get cold? Can a snake feel lost?
My father saw it and took a hoe and chopped
Its neck. Or maybe it was some other snake.
I don’t know. They all look a lot the same.
He tried to toss it by the tail across
The fence, but it got caught in a tree, where it hangs.
I’m raking leaves when my brother finally pulls in. He looks a lot
Like normal, but I know. He’s not. My father grins
And hugs him around the neck, and a cop
Turns around in the cul-de-sec, and it seems
Like no one finds this place except on accident.
I take off my gloves, and in no time flat,
The heat goes out of them, and I
Sit down behind a pile of leaves
And pretend I’m somewhere else,
Where there is no help,
And therefore there is no need--
Where the wolves would have you long before the grief.
Big scared eye, pink, dumb,
And unobtrusive as a broken clock.
Shocked, I drop him as he tears my arm.
He thumps his way over to the corner and digs at the carpet, my brother’s rabbit, because
My brother’s come back home, numb.
Talks about how he talked to his wife today about the law,
Of all things. Puzzles over his accounts and slumps
His way into the kitchen for a beer. We don’t have any.
Once, when wolves would eat the sick, it was
A better world. Now we have guns,
Doctors, ammo, medicine, and entropy
Alone we trust to kill us,
Passively.
I was cutting the hedge at noon today when I saw
The slim end of a tail slide over broken
Holly leaves, drifting slowly,
Poorly camouflaged. It was Christmas, and I thought,
It’s cold out. Snakes should all be under rocks,
Hidden. And I wondered what had woke him
And scared him from his hole, and I thought,
Can a snake get cold? Can a snake feel lost?
My father saw it and took a hoe and chopped
Its neck. Or maybe it was some other snake.
I don’t know. They all look a lot the same.
He tried to toss it by the tail across
The fence, but it got caught in a tree, where it hangs.
I’m raking leaves when my brother finally pulls in. He looks a lot
Like normal, but I know. He’s not. My father grins
And hugs him around the neck, and a cop
Turns around in the cul-de-sec, and it seems
Like no one finds this place except on accident.
I take off my gloves, and in no time flat,
The heat goes out of them, and I
Sit down behind a pile of leaves
And pretend I’m somewhere else,
Where there is no help,
And therefore there is no need--
Where the wolves would have you long before the grief.
