Naked Ladies & New Birds

Through the walkingness of evening
two new peacocks step inside the cerulean
footcreases of their forebears & rustle up
astonished bugs. Yes it's true:

Cousin Casey has brought back
the totem animal of this town. And already
the male is risking life & wing to admire
his plumage in the car bumpers. Keep
all chrome away from him.

In the last two weeks I've been robbed
& rear-ended, and someone marauded
my sugarbaby watermelons. I feel sorta
like a marauded melon myself -- seedy,
pulpy, cooked by August.

So water & belongings retreat. The creek
pulls in like a pantleg, dangling turtles.
Rocks the color of fog. A sift of wind.
On the edges of dried things naked ladies
pose, whose muscular pink flowers seem
to erupt fully-formed from leafless stalkings.

And there are still blackberries, whose roots
once cured an entire Indian village of dysentary.
Above-ground they form walls, viney railroads
ferrying fruit, & also fortresses for the coveys
of quail who land in them at nightfall,
wheeling, musical.