On the tenth day of quarantine
the sun breaks out, a yard full
of brilliant triangles scuttering
with the wind. A full show—
obtuse and acute, equilateral,
a few isosceles, but most scalene
like deformed snake heads,
the craquelure of a rocked window pane.
To err on the side of caution,
someone sweeps all the slivers.
How could he err otherwise?
I always whistle Dixie
when I err. If it be incautious,
we’ll at least be tapping our toes,
wishing for a fiddle or kazoo.
And suppose that sweeping gesture
is not cautious, for in times
of the new reality who can know?
Not a soul hums a note
behind his broom. All we hear
in the circumstances permitting
is the swush of those brooms
synchronized with the wurssh
of pulses flickering
the dulling sun lights
as the triangles melt.
the sun breaks out, a yard full
of brilliant triangles scuttering
with the wind. A full show—
obtuse and acute, equilateral,
a few isosceles, but most scalene
like deformed snake heads,
the craquelure of a rocked window pane.
To err on the side of caution,
someone sweeps all the slivers.
How could he err otherwise?
I always whistle Dixie
when I err. If it be incautious,
we’ll at least be tapping our toes,
wishing for a fiddle or kazoo.
And suppose that sweeping gesture
is not cautious, for in times
of the new reality who can know?
Not a soul hums a note
behind his broom. All we hear
in the circumstances permitting
is the swush of those brooms
synchronized with the wurssh
of pulses flickering
the dulling sun lights
as the triangles melt.