Yin & Yang
You are the Sun
radiating high
overhead.
I am Pluto
of the far, cold
surrounding edge.
Between us is the life
you’ve brought into our lives,
you the gatekeeper, a magnetic north
that has drawn these four- & two-legged
creatures to our door.
I usher them out,
ferry them to the vet
when the tumor has burst.
I have dug holes on top of holes
where sunflowers & morning glories rise
to greet your early morning breath.
The dog, half-blind & rusting hips,
fetches the sticks you hurl for him.
When digging his grave
I break an axe on a buried, beating root
of the apple tree where owls roost
when calling out to me. Over the dog’s body
you build a compost pile of spoiled apples
too numerous to store or bake with,
from which curl earthworms & wild mint.
You pack the muck around tomato stalks
& roses climbing the front of our house.
I am up the ladder
deadheading blooms
when crimson petals curl & fade,
fall into your hair & at your feet
like Persephone re-entering the Underworld
September 24th
On the same day the old upright
is busted apart in the kitchen
because they can’t get it out the door.
Hammers and ivory flats and sharps
splintering across the counters and sink.
Long-silent keys cry out, stripped-bare
metal skeleton groans beneath the mallet.
The dog, deaf but feeling the vibrations
of the blows, hides with us in the lounge.
Our old piano tuner sounded the death knell
months ago: this Weinard over a century old
didn’t have long to live: Piano makers were once
all over London, names no one remembers.
Pre-war survivors sell for a song on eBay,
ours having lived in a church hall for years,
then a damp barn, before the farmer
toted it here on his tractor, smoothly rolling
into our home, now refusing to leave.
On this same day the baby grand is tuned,
previously owned by an in-law and willed
to her priest but he was already in a home.
Elvis the mover had to remove a closet door
to get it inside our house. The piano tuner
turning up today is young, a jazz musician
by night. As if finding a lost soul a new home,
he cocks an ear, taps a few keys, sprinkles out
notes, then when satisfied he plays.
Autumn leaves cover our drive
and fill our dining room.
Flights, Issue Fourteen, November 2024
Flight of the dragonfly 