Macerate a few herbs aromatic
fennel, thyme, cardamom
inside the fifties housewife’s head scarf
before she stows away on the back of
an air force drone
to the old country
where her mother’s
slaughtering a goat with a
broken Coke bottle
and her father’s learning how
to dog proof the Christmas tree
No one’s taken off their boots in months
and when she passes them the shoe horn
it’s all over as soon as the landlord says
“Please, no ethnic cooking”
and you foolishly reply

“It’s just hard boiled eggs”

There’s a road sign that
one sometimes passes
on the country roads of Quebec
a child lying still on his side
next to the road

And the words read
“This child could be your own”
though of course
they are written in French

But you’d rather add brine
to an overabundance of peas
peppers and zucchinis
stuff them safely away
in a dark spot
in the kitchen cabinet
in a mason jar and
wait
for the lactic acid tang
to bring out
the pickle

These pickles
are living things
you know
and you can
almost taste them
with their garlic
and dill

But instead
you think about
snake *****
and how it
might smell

The child will be fine you say
he’ll grow up to be an insurance broker
get a divorce at 43
and when he’s eighty-four
his toes will be like gherkins
his nails infected with fungus
and he’ll remember
that day
when he
played dead.

descendant of
those kids
who signed up
to take a
one-way trip
to Mars

inside the
10 x 12 metal shelter
that separates me
from the atmosphere
that would boil  
a man’s blood

in the 6 month darkness
of a Martian winter
i think about what you
said about
the smell of flowers
newly mown
grass
and the moths
that fly up
the window at night

and beat

against the glass                      

sometimes
you think about us
up there and
wonder
if we are happy
in our world
because you
are not
in your’s

tired
of waiting to hear
about the birth of
another royal baby
another global flood
and how that
last strawberry
was sold for $150,000
to a man with
yellowing toenails

i know it’s
only a few weeks now
before an edge
of sunlight
breaks across
the far hills
and that soon
the aluminum-walled
gardens
will yield again
their greens

my lover
died a year ago
of the Disease
and her mummy
is just a Martian stone’s
throw away

sure i still
gaze through the telescope
at your world
and watch
the last flickering lights
of your cities
but there is
more to do
here

yesterday
a new breed was born
all mole-like
and pink

she was more comfortable
outside thrashing about in the
red soil
so we left her there
and when we returned
she waved her lobster claw
in a playful gesture
back at
the Earth

i've been out digging
in the Davis Creek
for clay deposits
so thick and grey

it coats the hands
and fingernails
and soothes the mind
with its softness

with my feet
in the cool water
and my *****
i pull out handfuls
and place them
into a sack
that later
i'll empty
onto a board

in a few days
it will harden and
i'll pulverize the clods
with a mallet
screen out the
roots and pebbles
and mix the powder
with water
into a slurry

i don't know
but it seems as if
i've been playing
in the dirt since
i was a boy and
this process
still calms me

makes me feel
that maybe i have
more time left

i’ve left
bean pods
on the plants
to dry
tiger lily
capsules to mature
achenes on the lettuce
tomato and pepper
fruits in the sun

the frosts will arrive
next week
but the freezer
is full now

and the seeds
will sit in jars
resting
the work of
so many before me

i will never be able
to repay them

the dentist
sets his drill
a-spinning
into the pupil
of your right eye

liquor
a fountain of it
spurts
such
a thin stream

don’t you know that
when you hold
the coca cola juice
in your mouth like that
your teeth
will dissolve
right
down
to the pulpy center?

now they’re walking past
your open
incision
and
they each place
a small
dumpling
into it

the gases
rise up
like the chicken meat
you left
in the fridge
for too long

and you live for that moment

inside Elvis’
digital pompadour
there’s a
constitutional oligarchy
and a harelip
and
you watch
from the corner of
your eye
as he scratches
deep inside there
and sniffs at his
fingertips
and
turns to his
girl and says
how it’s
oh so redolent
of the eggs
of silverfish
and that Evel Knievel’s
cologne
was never
so sweet