NATHAN HAUKE

 

 

                                     



BONES OR BRANCHES

 

 

 

 

            1

winter scours my eyes with steel wool and they shine like coal

 

and they fill with wild apple blossoms jet-black feathers

 

and they grainy edge where dusk bleeds through wasted leaves a

 

rusted-out coffee can

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          2

Or last night,

crying again

 

You really

wanted to be pregnant

 

Even though

we can’t

 

afford to

buy groceries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           3

Intent on dry weeds—

 

Blurred double-exposure of the face in the photo

 

Stale ice flows scraping bright orange buoys

 

Trash wrappers torn up through trees across the field

 

After Mom calls to tell Noah they’ve taken Grandma to the hospital

 

Because they couldn’t get her out of the chair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           4

IRIS

 

Names loved ones radio static smoke

 

Ventilator sunlight twists

 

The oak’s broken shadow

 

Voice ripped free to drift

 

Or the crow’s flight to his branch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           5                                 

For K

 

It’s a fine morning

……………..

 

He was crying on the stairs when I turned to look back in the window

 

Stepping out onto the deck to fish beers out of a snowy 12 pack

 

Thankful to be alone with you when wind rattles our story

 

Clusters of trees streaked by intervals of distance—a panicked clutter of wings

 

Where seed eats through to grass at the base of the feeder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           6

Draft of wind just over the flue—

 

Ashes

As far as

What

Grieves you

Ashes

It’s gone         

Forever

Grieves you the most

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           7

Sassy

Carolina wren

 

Laughing

its head off

 

Melt on the deck

near old leaves

 

And a bunched up rug

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             8

 Sweet rot oranges

 

Musty week-old Valentine’s Day flowers

 

Snow covers the river like a throw

 

The morning you died

 

Woke us up and we were shocked       we were

 

Dogs barking (same as always)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             9

F smacks his lips to lick out an empty yogurt container

 

Holes or wounds savage shaking in the air

 

What to do or say when dead brothers wave at the window

 

Your hands were soft your arms the texture of bark

 

Looking up from somewhere frightened

 

Glow of coals in the woodstove

 

Leave Noah sleeping across two chairs by the bed

 

Your hair like cornhusk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           10

Bent rusty fence got some give to it

As deer crowd through worn tombstones for winter grass

Simple and they return

More gracefully as a family

Not cut off from each other caustic or edgy

Haunted by dissonances

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           11

House at THE LITTLE ANGELS OF HEAVEN in shadows vacant all day

 

No one’s there since the man went to jail for assault

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           12

Make a home where you are

wrap K in our quilt and pull on my jacket in the doorway

 

brush snow off the woodpile, dirt and ash

from my hands at the sink

 

mourning is slow music

bubbles under the ice

 

buds gathering behind isolations

residual numbness of grief—hoarfrost

 

on faded cloth flowers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           13

Feedback—

 

Knots of fear

 

Racked by anger

 

Frayed blue tarp

 

Caught in a crosswind

 

Buckets of ash

 

We pour into the garden

 

Leaves crushed to pulp

 

Under the chair’s legs

 


 

 

                                                                                                      

 

      

 

                                   

 

 


TYPO 17