Anne Boyer
LARKS
Fourteen stanzas through the brush please mention
I dig this slumping anti-sentence: punctuation
a meter: yards up. Tight and unapologetic promoters
of the agenda — my ratty down people —tell me
again how you grooved across my brother's face.
My concern is that you may flee the city rumbling en masse,
burning ship songs, the landing party on fire, stumbling drunk,
tongues flapping like surrender, hair in Albion curls.
Brave little sots, dandy in your bones (they fold like architecture),
do not hope for a minute I would not turret, moat and knight for you.
I would Harvester and John Deere and Pioneer for you.
I would (if a creek) tadpole all the names I cunning
for you: preordain, prehensile, prepay, prescient, predate.
I cunning for you: mistake, misery, misalign. My people
(larks) I would catfish. I would bass boat. I would cast a fly.