Scarecrow. Robert Fernandez

      There is no damage here.

      The brain is fine. The leaves,

      fine. The wine is as black as ever

      —

      There is a pace

      and it slows

      and it sees

      and it

      lows

      —

      One slickens up to you, all

      oil, to assure you of your substance.

      This is all all all. Make a note

      of it. Herein lies a balance

      for yellow birds with black heads

      and black moths with yellow heads

      and all detritus of coming near

      the realm of the dead—namely,

      yellow and black leaves softened parting

      —

      So I am a pairing—I know my rules:

      let sheep eat sheep and lions, lions.

      Let Latins meet Greeks under patch-

      work quilts. Let the vision plaid

      for a bit

      —

      I bit

      and the grapefruit had a bit

      of death’s black and from my tear ducts

      came grapefruit seeds, black

      as hor-

      nets. Pity

      them Lord for they know not

      what they do. Pity the lions and the locusts

      —

      Pity the animals—the day is a raze,

      heat and wheat gathered into airy combines

      of thrashing. The noise spins lions

      in the air. My fair one falls

      down to me on black ropes. No

      one can see me, and hope is a thing

      for birds and fools. I drool

      on locust bouquets and steps

      of honey. Come

      —

      Meet your master

      in the dust; with his

      one tooth, he drains

      you dry. May you spin

      here, scarecrow, among

      the other straw-like things

      planted in the dark earth,

      swollen with light and time

      when for a moment

      When for a moment

      you eat through

      the air to swallow

      syrupy red letters

      Poe

      Poe

      Poe

      —

      And bells could be

      jasmine and gold,

      bone and soap,

      seaweed and ivy

      —

      Crack dread’s

      red egg on

      the burning rock

      and let your eyes

      speak, your hands

      walk

      —

      The lake

      unveils its planks;

      you find your way

      to the red silk pavilion

      —

      A meal of steaks and pearls

      in impossible heat

      with cameras at

      —

      Every angle

      and the lions, too,

      with watchful eyes—

      —

      Drain that bourbon

      to the red, to the dre-

      gs of silt and baboon,

      to all animals mashed

      and quiet, disastered

      and interred, en-

      tered in stasis, in

      stillness

      it would be better if you tasted rain

      It would be better if you tasted rain

      than this spiced asphalt,

      leavened brown horizon and flapjack

      blacktop

      —

      Pollution gets in the skin, spices it

      red brown red yellow red brown,

      so we

      —

      Take a swim beyond the dusty chambers of summer,

      out where coasts decant coolness and fins rising

      from heat slicks reveal cooler depths

      —

      If time’s a chance to stand outside romance

      with the immediacies of never-ending foliage

      and mark mark mark yes! our pastures for our own

      and forthcoming disasters—

      —

      Here is a bust that rolls down a hill and breaks the water,

      fat with coolness

      —

      I wanted to know a name; I played sports; I

      wore shorts; I had a mother and a father (they did too); I

      challenged every bone, went south for the winter; I

      ate duck, roasted; I said “quail” (it buoyed in me); I

      wanted and I wanted, and I

      —

      Remained. O Icy water, spilled

      like a blade across the neck, I ask

      that you do your work, I

      am tired and it is hot

      and today I

      have the energy for almost nothing

      we adorn

      I ask for the broken ladder to fill my head

      for sunstroke, red horns of wheat

      for dailiness, let me know particulars

      O red horn brightened in my chest,

      the hairs are countless, I ask

      for lozenges like islands, and the color—

      red yellow blue—staining the dark

      I ask for daylight, forms noticed, held, cut

      down