Let's read a few more.
Am I doing all right for time?
Yeah.
This is-- I fear giving too little, and even worse
overstaying my welcome.
This poem-- during the pandemic, I
took a couple of Irish language classes
through the Irish Arts Center in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan,
and I became completely captivated
by a lot of their lexicon.
And there's one-- a couple of words
that were very exciting to me.
One was the word for spider, but I can't remember the Irish is,
but it actually translates literally into wall demon.
That's the word.
And then there's this other one called a bóín dé.
Bó is the Irish word for cow.
You can see how this is actually really influenced
by the Latin-- bó is the Irish word for cow,
ín is a suffix that's a diminutive,
so it means little cow, and dé means
of God, so little cow of God is the translation of bóín dé,
but what it means in Irish is ladybug.
And so this is a poem for a ladybug.
"Bóín Dé."
Little cow of God, the wattage of your red reverberates
the earth, and spots of onyx nestle on its lacquer
like fixed stars.
Bravissima!
You are red's least loudmouth ambassador,
paradise's minuscule half apple, mobilized by a half dozen legs
and under the split open dome of you, gold leaf wings,
folded over esoterically like dress patterns whose thinness
whispers to the near devotional care called for
to pin them out properly.
Meanwhile, your antennae, animate,
demonstrate sensitivity with a nonchalance
that shames the bureaucrat.
Thanks for that.
You serve purpose in the garden, but at the moment,
what matters is I see you.
Little cow of god, who had been sleeping
on a pompom I sewed by hand onto a store-bought curtain
till I jostled you awake, you who flew to my laptop's light
and landed on the staves of my work surface, tell me,
am I dying?
Little cow, blood-drop omen, stopped in front of me
like a whole note in a chorus that
celebrates the invisible labor of useless
thought, you who had grown tired, I have grown old,
but is it over, our irrelevant haven,
this thimble's worth of song?