Grass
San Antonio, Florida
They don't mow on Sundays in San Antonio.
They keep the seventh day for Paz
and Neruda, for Simic angels
whose wings are made of smoke.
And they walk their dogs softly in
the mornings, so they will not miss
the smallest utterance of Whitman
or of John Claire, who pace the parks
early, when a ground fog's rising
and the oranges are lanterns
on their stems. And sometimes
they go to bed changed. And
they'll swear it was not they who
fumbled in their sheets at dawn,
as the poets rose like grass, and
the mowers coughed and were still.
—Lola Haskins
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From Desire Lines, New and Selected Poems, BOA Editions, 2004