Many of my poems are written about friends, and neighbors,
and students.
I haven't written any yet about faculty members,
but I'm working on it.
One thing I worry about, though, is
that the people will recognize themselves in these poems
and then be waiting for me outside after the reading.
And I hope it's realized that these people, the real life
people, are merely points of departure for the poems.
And so these poems have many elements in them,
which in fact, are not true.
So that's the reason for my long preamble to this one, called
Steak Bones.
My neighbor puts steak bones under his trees.
Walking in the alley, there he is this bishop
of the church in his robe and slippers,
holding a lamp like the sage on Hills Bros.
Coffee, stooping, turning them over with a rake
because they are growing hair.
He spends evenings dozing on the back porch chasing
the dogs away that sail back and forth over the fence.
On weekends, lets his grandchildren play with them,
use them as boomerangs, as parts for their airplanes.
But when they go home, he makes them put them back
each to its own rounded place, rotting eggs
into their nests like loaded pistols back into their cases.
I have read that after years if the mice don't get them,
the ants carry them away.
But they begin to disintegrate, a constant phosphorous
rain like uranium penetrating the soil.
Meanwhile, they lie there in their wild beards,
some with lipstick smiles on their faces,
others growing the thin vestigial legs of lizards
glowing in their circles, humming
their own private music.
As above, the citrus leaves curl turning a violent green putting
out their globing fruit.
And he lies awake on his back beneath his Van Dyke,
ripening overnight in anticipation.
It's a-- I don't know the chemistry of it,
but supposedly certain fertilizers come out
of these disintegrating bones.
I've never tried it myself.
I'd have all the dogs in the neighborhood in the backyard.