Puckerbrush Review

WINTER / SPRING 2008

Back Yard Feeder

One by one, in bright daylight, nuthatches
arrive at the back yard feeder, chipping away
in their discriminating taste—quick-picking milo

and white millet, spitting back sunflower seeds
that stipple the fresh snow where juncos and sparrows
hop, gorging themselves on what they love best.

They too take their turns, swinging on the feeder, spilling
the excess for the others—chickadees, finches, cardinals-
busyness—flitting in and out of the crab apple tree, waiting

and not waiting for their ride on this carousel
that stops abruptly in the flash of wings spiraling
through the wiry branches, spraying wisps of snow in the swirl

of flight to everywhere but here. The yard stands empty—
The sharp-shinned hawk settles onto a high branch, unruffled—
The feeder quivering slightly.

The Dance

—After Winslow Homer’s A Summer Night

Through navy blue skies, the moon
casts pearled light upon the ocean’s tide—foamy waves, curling
around clusters of rocks, spray a mist of salt upon the bonfire, making

it hiss and sputter—flames shooting higher, like voices of
men sitting shoulder to shoulder, watching embers glow; singing
their lost songs while two women dance in slow circles on the moss

covered jetty, relinquishing their weight in their embrace—
holding each other long enough to breathe the one complete smell
of perfume—their hearts’ rhythm caught in the shush of

luscious yellow dresses, ignoring the smoky
conversations, so foreign
and far removed.

Five poems
Becky Kennedy

At Home

After death the neighbors
don’t dare to talk
leaving pans of food

by the door,
No one home but me
at the window over

the yard where a jay rules
on the stone bench
I once dragged to its place.

He visits the swing,
balanced on a seat,
then skips to the grass

and disappears.
The swings were busy once;
bees mumble now

like familiars rifling
through wisteria ruffles
and the fingers of the leaves.

Each Day You’ve Been Leaving

This longest evening,
this longest light
that passes through leaves
like day stars seeing
through

as summer hurries in
the grass, involute
climbing and lessening
since you’ve been gone

and in each blue cancellation

this longest shadow
relentlessly abates:
since you’ve been gone
you’ve been leaving a little

at a time each day

the way
midsummer shadows go
into the leaves
and the sun crowds in.

In the Company of Things

In the morning, each morning
awake again
when I have been dreaming you
and am confused
I am in the company of rooted things

trees, flowers
with their heavy heads
when I stand in one place
there is a space between two things
and when I advance to another view

they are together and fused
in the morning
in the frame of darkness
when I dream you alive
each morning I am in the company of things

dawn rides the skyline
and the early clouds pattern
and their shadows slide
and now the sun hits the leaves where
a shadow has fallen in

Urn

Cleaning the attic
box by frowsty box
I come across it
five years after

our child’s death,
the cat died too;
it was I who found
the small, stiff form

on a bedroom floor
and we chose a blue urn
that we kept near us
until the night when,

shaken by a dream,
you yanked down the attic trapdoor,
snatched up the urn,
and climbed the cranky flight.