On a crisp October day,
my daughter is painting Nature
in the kitchen
by the screened glass door.
Her grandmother is out
side, hanging up
electrical fence around the garden
like Christmas tree lights.
The squash are already
tucked, surrendered.
The laundry, soiled,
is nearly done.
I have raised my daughter too well.
She scolds the other children
with hands full of dirt.
She is full of nutrients her body, not
her own, learned to use
before she knew
their wellsprings.
Her paintings seem to break
my heart so cleanly.
Her deer in the meadow are figures
in scotch-tape grass, one straight line after another.
Her country road barrels, colonizes.
Her trees are a plastic green
and an egg-thick round,
mocking the bare limbs rot-gummed and whimpering
past the screened door
on her right side.
Outside, her father rakes leaves into a pile.
A big black bag waiting to take
them away to the penitentiary.
Shwack shwack
And I sigh
and I long
for a hope
of vowels
as soft
as its sound.
I wish I could show her the bluestem, the
goldenrod, the tallgrass.
But I sip my coffee, watch myself grow old.
She colors with crayons.
She will only ever think things come like this.
Concentrated, siphoned, color-clean
and industry-bright.
So lull me to sleep
in the lilacs with lies.
Soft-rot my gums too.
Let me make myself mud
until I hear nothing at all.
