Inheritance, from Wild Expectations

Here is a sample of the poetry in my collaboration with Magdalena Lily McCarson (who deserves full credit for the photograph).

Inheritance

You are human,

and as such,

you inherited

a massive collection

of domesticities,

tangled together

like a box of tackle

that’s part of the family

even though no one fishes

anymore, not since before

some war or other.

You were born

into a suite

of civil decorations,

predetermined as

wide-ruled paper,

and you never got to choose

at the start

how tame you would be

or where your territory would range.

Now the weeds threaten

the property line

and tap

tap tap

on the view

out the window.

They overgrow

your sense

of propriety,

because how

could anything

that flowers

be wicked?

You have your moments

when you anticipate

burning it all down,

living off the road,

forwarding all correspondence

to a PO box

you will never check.

You didn’t ask for society,

and you don’t know

how to answer

the primal itch

humming up through

your feet.

Wild Expectations is now available directly from Casa Urraca Press and in such New Mexico shops as Seeds Art Cafe (in Pena Blanca), op.cit (Taos), and the Abiquiu Inn.