by Tricia Knoll
I open a fortune cookie with my take-out
egg fu young from Men at Wok. No fortune.
Fewer fireflies than last week light up
this humid July night.
The grass needs mowing. Jewel weed
takes over the woods.
The first bitternut hickory falls from
the trees looming over my skylights.
My shy dog flinches like the nut
is a bullet aimed at her easy life.
I read a list of assassinations.
Kids learned about Lincoln.
I remember Kennedys, King,
and Milk. One King, a Mayor,
of Mt Pleasant, Iowa shot
when a citizen’s sewage backed up.
Of course, the gun was an AR 15,
what the NRA calls America’s gun.
A long night unrolls with drips
of information. The names of the dead
withheld. Lamentations in the fairground
field. Endless replays of a bloody ear.
I swat at the mosquito buzzing in mine.
egg fu young from Men at Wok. No fortune.
Fewer fireflies than last week light up
this humid July night.
The grass needs mowing. Jewel weed
takes over the woods.
The first bitternut hickory falls from
the trees looming over my skylights.
My shy dog flinches like the nut
is a bullet aimed at her easy life.
I read a list of assassinations.
Kids learned about Lincoln.
I remember Kennedys, King,
and Milk. One King, a Mayor,
of Mt Pleasant, Iowa shot
when a citizen’s sewage backed up.
Of course, the gun was an AR 15,
what the NRA calls America’s gun.
A long night unrolls with drips
of information. The names of the dead
withheld. Lamentations in the fairground
field. Endless replays of a bloody ear.
I swat at the mosquito buzzing in mine.
Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet old enough to vividly remember the shooting of President Kennedy announced to her high school over a public address system while she took a French test. Her most recent chapbook The Unknown Daughter contains persona poems linked to reactions in a community that houses the Tomb of the Unknown Daughter.
