FAWN

1. The Incredible, Elasticated Tail of the Squirrelly One

As soon as the body dips, plateauing, I will out of that incredulous

splat, ascendant, like the miraculous flight of the anvil

jacked by the rickety pulley; away, I cry as I fly,

away, green triangles, stiff peaks of grassiness, whose edges

incline with me now: up and up, ladder of the larder

called world, whereon a sun rolls, until halted, there

above the steeples, the sun, the foreground through which I run, pile

on heap on heap (I’m full of cheese) and turn the cheek

(I’m a wag!), wearing the self outside-in like the sock puppet

pantomiming the garter snake, who forewarns, “Be that it may be

my chomp makes me sleepy,” and fall back down again

feather-heavy or anvil-light, and give the body

some drag, body I curtail as body, tail as tail.

2. Hoard to Get by the Odd Unevening

The sprezzatura of Winter, so at ease, growing out its hair

some winterlongs that it may toss behind its back a long black reel

that we may receive and receive and cover our eyes

while the wintry incense digs deeper into our skin. But time,

as they say, is of the essence like the cheese of the nut

and sweeter than rest to increase in our labors: squirrel

this and squirrel that, while the hole around us keeps getting deeper.

So, we, lapped up increasingly by the demands made on subsistence,

go faster, faster aboard the bicycle rigged to this gig

and that, and as we whiz past the modes of being—pulleys

stretching across the room into the sky—shit gems of stratagem.

And the nut running inside the wheel to project the nut goes into

overdrive, amid the sprezzatura of Winter, so at ease.

3. Rooms of Olivine

Trees erupt around us, a violent wrenching skyward

each from the little world made cannily, to trouble, at last, the dream

of tree, a wayward constellation like a leafy matrice over

a pond; the dream ruptured, a cell shredded by osmosis, trees

surge like comets headlong into the sky, heads tail-

spinning like a phenakistoscope dovetailing through rooms

of the greenery. That night—the night of nights—running through

the exploding field of stars, I have had the hunch, I want to grow up.

I am running amid the forest, while the trees rain down on

me, running amid the forest, while the trees rain down

on me, running amid the forest, while the trees—you

appear and jar me; awake, I look to you

brilliant and opaque as a nut in a forest enflamed.

4. Mr. Peanut Butter, Mr. Fluffernutter, Mr. Headbutter

At your doorstep, the day’s machinations lie in wait,

hurling streams of commodified time at your door for immediate

servicing. This is the attention economy yammer-yammering until

your head wants to explode! Sift through the creamy river

for gradients of nut, the diamonds you latch onto.

Erect the butter-house. As a luminous opacity.

Where the sun drops its secret bead into everything:

retreating more and more inward, spiral

of a conch, the butter-house more and more is its golden

aspect, its buttery. The butter-house wends space,

oil pooling upon the grassiness like memory. Everyday more dis-

appears around the corner of the butter-house.

Around the corner, heart-shaped leaves aquiver.

5. Redux/Redux

A squirrel bounds like the cat Kupu-kupu

pounce but onward, in perpetuum, two mirrors held in parallel,

an elegant ribboning out across spacetime to hold the world

intact/keep world under wraps, a tantalizing gift

Kupu-kupu/squirrel realizes with each jump, a bounding

onward like the jumps of the pebble across the mirrored

surface of the pond, a rippling of blips, each a

ferrying farther and farther away from the originary

point—find me, Katydid-song, fill me in,

more ants, more pants—feeling rushes in to stitch,

squirrel above cabinet, Kupu-kupu inside laundry basket,

like I blink and there upon the shingles of the roof you are,

you are my guiding and errant star, Kupu-kupu.

6. So There is News Abound

A madcap hubbub makes across the grassy terrain, a chimera

of worlds knocking on worlds, worlds knocking

within worlds, like the prism of light which makes its way

to me, having traveled across a mesh of waves, particles, dream-

particles, and surfacing on the hillocky mound between my thumb

and index finger upon which I wade into such sudsy reality.

At times, though, the grass simply lies in wait, or appears

that way from a distance until closer inspection reveals

hovercrafts of bees beeping, caught in a traffic jam:

The grass is meat! The grass is meat jelly! In the meantime,

a nut jumps from grid to grid amid the grassy panes,

while careful fingers foray and pry open the green screen,

open for a nut amid the folds of lotus.