SPRING AFTERNOON
We have fallen on the mattress
like foot-soldiers in soft mud,
the enemy making off
with our boots and automatics.
Bright butterflies grow from the head
of my wife, and my right hand
holds three caterpillars, as we lie
now in a forest. The sun
is silent like the silence
surrounding the alarm clock.
Light winged insects fly up
to a white ring in the top leaves.
Their green shadows spatter through ferns
and on our faces. But the war
returns like daybreak: tanks move in
throwing flames and we retreat into trees.
My wife, as a tree, her lower branches
caught by fire; buds explode into
dogwood, cherry blossom.
Then bells begin to sound and we
run toward a school-house at the wood’s edge.
Elsewhere men race for air-raid shelters.
We dive into foxholes. We duck
behind mushrooms. They are shooting back.
Kiss me! My skin is burning, burning.
