Let’s Not Live on Earth - Sarah Blake Wesleyan Poetry Series

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head turning as if he heard my son’s voice, until he does it over and over, predictable

      little dragon head. Whole predictable body.

      We’ll all be sleeping tonight, at some point. At some point,

      we’ll all be sleeping tonight. Unless we die in these last hours of the day.

      But if we make it through, my head will look like yours, asleep. Just like it. Just like that.

      EVERYTHING SMALL

      Look, ok, the story—

      first, a fox

      is on fire, but not

      dying, no, in a god-

      like way, and flying

      a bit, you know,

      in the yard

      above the grass

      in a figure eight

      loosely,

      and grinning

      so maybe you look

      at the fox and think,

       He’s a fool!

      except that you’re

      distracted by

      all the fire,

      how you feel heat

      from him from

      inside the house

      where you’ve been

      all along,

      haven’t you?

      But to continue—

      second, a rabbit,

      small enough

      to hide beneath

      a weed,

      one leaf of a weed,

      which is sad,

      yes, pity the body

      before it’s grown

      fully, or

      the body that

      can’t complete

      itself how it might,

      not that

      everything small

      is paltry, just

      worry about

      the rabbit for me

      who’s in the yard

      right now

      under that fiery fox

      that came

      out of nowhere.

      Shit, you left

      the house

      with a treat in your

      hand as if you

      understand foxes,

      fox-gods, any

      wild animal

      in forms magical,

      impossible.

      Throw it away from

      the rabbit, go to

      the rabbit—

      is that the plan,

      the rescue that

      paints you

      hero, savior?

      Well, the fox comes

      right up and

      bites your hand off.

      How’s that, you

      wonder, you

      handless fiend?

      The rabbit’s gone.

      And the fox,

      sated or feeling

      bad about what

      he’s done,

      is off, down the hill,

      flame going out,

      feet touching

      ground again,

      slipping into

      the gallop of every

      four-legged animal

      that comes

      to about the knee,

      his soft ears

      turning

      at the sound of

      your voice

      screaming

      but starting to cry.

      Every animal

      nearby, you imagine,

      is turning to listen

      to you now.

      TWO OAKS

      I remember them as impossible trees—roots perfectly under the ground. I have a maple tree now and you can’t grow anything at its base, such a wreck with its knotty roots, and I see the way the animals burrow there, in that patch of dirt. But my childhood backyard is a flat field of zoysia in my mind, hardly touched by the two trees, as if they poked through a plane of existence, connecting one plane to another, the plane of sky maybe, or something before that, just there, just so. If I could plan a dream, I would walk myself up one of those oak trees and touch that next plane. I would pierce it as perfectly as the tree had pierced the plane of grass. I would get all my nutrients from below it but excel above. One unfairness to pile on the others.

      RATS

      It’s difficult to tell

      rats are in the basement.

      They’re so quiet.

      We go to bed so early.

      After midnight, they

      crawl out of a tunnel

      and go to the neighbor’s

      birdfeeder and pond.

      I imagine their bodies

      in the moonlight,

      the reflection of their

      small faces in the pond

      over the ledge

      of flagstones.

      After the poison

      is placed in our rafters,

      we tell the neighbors

      the rats might feel

      sick and go for water

      and die in their pond.

      I can see that too.

      I looked up pictures

      of rats so I can

      see them in any

      compromised position,

      like the naked woman

      we can all call up

      for any crime

      in the news. Just as

      I can see them,

      the rats now, in

      positions of success,

      quiet and warm in a nest

      between my floorboards.

      Their faces the same

      in

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