Icarian, and: After the Storm

Icarian

Last night the ripe berry stretched
      & burst.
Something like a moth's trajectory
      broke off & drifted by me
as I lay like compost,
      steaming, makeshift.
Two geese came out of the morning
      mist, one
bleeding from the beak.
      Tonight I'll leave over blackened fields
of goldenrod, leave
      with my desolate dry dreams of flight.

After the Storm

Where the wall peaks, the stream
swims down the hill, dances like an eel.

Doors cough somewhere and shapes stretch out.
Marigolds flicker and something shoots through

the sun burning everything yellow.
He used to lick sherbet from an old

spoon picked up in a flea market.
I have washed the dog but he still stinks.

I watch the stream, now gold and suddenly
I see my childhood as if for the first time.

It smells of menthol. I conclude I have no inner resources,
just an old woman's memory, and sit back up, crumpled,

to watch myself from a different distance.
In front of the house a small car sits

too big for its own good. Soundless
on the ground beside it, around its wheels,

apple blossoms stir in small heaps. In a
different world we'd all know where we go.

For now I am in those flowers.