LOCAL VASE

Do you also often find a way to keep your life

by first conceding what you most could live without?

Water, as you know, submerges some things, buoys others.

And the flowing past is lesson, one we know by heart.

My father once, in rage, heaved my brother's slingshot

at the creek, made him eat the duck he'd killed.

Slowly he chewed, not in savor but in fear, his tiny jaw

stuffed, a growth to be swallowed, bathed in his body's juices

to be broken down, digested, nourished and strengthened by.

Perhaps this meal was gift. Perhaps our days are fragile.

Surely this was the case: a vase in a local window,

pawned to keep the bills at bay, the habit calm,

the memory distant, gone, defunct. Surely circumstance

forced this crafted, shapely piece beyond her need for it;

who, except for nowhere else to turn, lets go of beauty,

hands it over, accepts the small exchange, continues on?

Mostly, cars edge past with lights on dim. It's not safe

these days; can't look too far ahead; can't walk these streets.

Half the streetlights keep the dark away. But in a window

someone's once-devotion on display completes a prayer: still there.

appeared in Amaranth