Vocation
The day I finally decided
To be a poet — yesterday —
I found I had everything I needed:
A clean pair of jeans,
Half a bottle of bourbon
My four-inch brass policeman paperweight
My sandstone Cochiti mountain lion fetish
With its soul strapped to its side
And an owl's cough-ball,
A bundle of matchsticks mousebones
Floating in a puff of fur.
So in My Dream
You killed yourself
so in my dream
I introduced your husband
to a new, exciting woman
who was you.
Plea
To my friend
who can no longer see
animals in the clouds
and takes it
as a sign of madness
Hang on. Keep watch.
They must be gathering now
over the Pacific,
great, soft herds of elephants,
cirrous alligators
and horses being pulled apart
with no pain.
_____________________________
Judith Hemschemeyer
Very Close and Very Slow
Wesleyan University Press, 1975
