David Jackson

Kittens

Here I am, sitting in my chair
They all want to sit with me there
Using my leg they start to climb
Start with one, then add nine
Seven still left to go
Where they’ll sit, I do not know.
***

Asylum from Ash

“Tranquility is the old man”s milk.”

Thomas Jefferson

Dizzy for that nutrient, we load the car.
The whole world is a pair of jeans
in need of a needle and patch.
We boomerang for mint green hills
no differently than heads
with migraines duck the light.
I doubted red geraniums this icy spring
since nothing glows brighter than war.
Doubted they’d rise through carapace soil,
react and grow to warm syringes of rain.

In the navel of drought,
blue bowls of water promise us
asylum from the cloying ash.
It’s quiet here,
except for the chattering birds
discussing the size of a seed.
Bears with noses in a cooler
eating someone’s morning eggs.
Rowboats slice a shadow’s dress.
After the wool, finger the silk.

A few loose thunder clots abide
like moccasins that pad a trail.
Moons these days —
bright silver shillings
plow through smoke.
I doze at peace, under a tree,
awaken to sights of a deer,
its hooves so close I mistake them
for pairs of brand new shoes.

by Janet I. Buck

“Asylum from Ash” was first published in _Azalea Plush._
***