Sufficiency
       

Things being increasingly maintenance, leaf
the color of distressed tin, the flanneling
of leaves, so the day is window-shopping us. Each shadow is
a mirror turned to the wall, no, the wax
seal of unsent correspondences. I washed
my bandaged hand and felt the bandage swell,
as a dog brushed the
wrong way, which was circling the lake again,
its empty white smears and acorn caps. Things being increasingly
maintenance, my life
of porches and discarded sunglass stones, distant
chanting, a small dog in
the pitcher plants, like a painter's brush in a clear glass. They dub
even the screams, these days of disinheritance
and nearness, which is all maintaining is—
the bird that burns its nest for love of heat, have I shown you that
enough? It pecks at the construction webbing
with a beak someone's soldered a blue toy soldier to

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Copyright © 2011 Zach Savich All rights reserved
from The Firestorm
Cleveland State University Poetry Center
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission