little red maple

The grass stays wet this time of year, slick and bright
like salmon roe, or something else we shouldn’t watch
become what it is. A shutter clicks behind the hinge

of my jaw. You confiscate my tiger’s eye and smoky quartz.
I spit them into your hands. I am ashamed for the titmouse
on our brisk, Austen-esque walk. Rheumy chalcedony buds

where the underwire digs in, and my throat closes. The geese
pinch me with their two rows of teeth, wrap me up in a watercolor
canvas. They could dunk me in the piss cross—see if I care. I want

to dance with that little red maple, the one insecure in the mid-
field. When the wind lifted me from the bog, I left a tarnished silver
chalice for my daughters. I want to dance with that little red maple.