By KAREN CHASE
See the trace of someone’s hand
in the shorn branches, the tangle
of trees past the flat lawn.
The composed yard—
fence, wall, dark shape
of cypress, vanishing elm form.
All the ways we shape and carve—
yards, religion, plans,
sonnets, villanelles,
seasons, days of the week,
times for meals, windows,
doors, frames—all
built and named things—
streets, numbers, cities.
Run, I say, to the jungly
woods, take in the animated
dirt, eat with your hands. Later on,
go home, lunch at noon, switch
direction, mow the lawn. Along, then,
comes the wild rainy world, call it beauty,
wind corrupting the grassy yard.
Karen Chase is the author of two collections of poems, Kazimierz Square and BEAR, as well as Jamali-Kamali, a book-length homoerotic poem which takes place in Mughal India. Her third book of prose, FDR on His Houseboat: The Larooco Log, 1924-1926, is forthcoming in 2016.
