Rob Plath

 

daisy in thunderstorm

early june
12:16 am
sitting on
third-hand
green couch
listening to
rain storm
my napping
cat’s eyes open
when it thunders
but placing
my palm
on the knobs
of her spine
her sweet lids
close again

____________

 

at last

i played the reel
of my birth
in reverse
suddenly the screaming
turned to silence
the hot coat of blood
was erased
red stitch by red stitch
the purple-blue
noose-like umbilical
unbraided itself
the cocoon turned
into a single cell
my mother’s & father’s
skins unfused
from one another
& moved to opposite
sides of the bed
& above a brooklyn rooftop
i was starlight again

____________

 

this will be you one day

today alone
in the cemetery
i bent to watch
a group of ants
carry a corpse
of a spider
towards their hill
while another group
moved grains of earth
away from the mouth
of the mound
so the corpse could fit
down the hole
& i thought of humans
walking over this scene
or stamping it out
& how ultimately
this is their fate
no matter what they do
& i laughed
as the spider corpse
disappeared down
the hole in the little hill
like it never spun silk
or drew blood
like it never was at all