POLLEN

When weeds eat the playhouse

what does that say about the family?

The ball left at the base of the tree

loses its breath shrinking into

a stump or clump of dirt and the mole comes

and the earth drums up into little mounds

nobody kicks. Then what year is it?

Maybe the door to the big house opens and a man comes out.

A woman comes out drying her hands.

Dinner is almost ready but there’s no one else

to eat it. Besides the man and the woman.

Maybe only the woman.

Or there’s no dinner.

The door to the playhouse stuck open not swinging

and light comes through

replete with pollen of cedar and foxglove

and something else is going to be planted

in the ditch by the road

on the bank of the river but there will not be

a child to tell its story. How will that change the story?

If the fox puts on her lavender gloves just as you shut your eyes.

If in the night something touches your sleeping cheek

and startles you and it is the fox

but you forget to offer her tea in the playhouse

then what year would you be sipping?

What would that say about the person you became?