1

                                                                                        Alligator

     There's nothing special about that doodling,
about the labels
     worn around, the brandished or neat-lined
superceding
     science we expected, as we expect some change,
some     six
     to eight degrees by suppertime, another
bullet
     in the boot, about     the place
where alligator
     joins a     second
exotic
     leather.


     And the audacity, playful, provocative, edgy
or combative,
     since it's your call, be sure, makes sense
of the minutiae,
     the inexplicably commonplace, of the desultory
minions, making sense
     of the changes in the bureaus, assigned
to the force-fit
     or fathomless executions: the day
of the Math-ers say,
     famous again for signs,
for their
     co-signs     and
samplings.



     2

                                                                              The Nets

     So take it to the bank there, wunderkind, while
the robin-bombed bluejay
     beats retreat and a one-seed supper into foliage,
measuring vicinity,
     travel times, at the annoying middle
of another rainy week,
     a course on the rooms available, the start of inquiry
and season's rush
     to prosperous mid-summer, to the crimsons,
finch-flourishing golds,
     the salmons and peach-hues, snow-peaking
roses the deck-warming
     light's coaxed to our interest, out of
the stillness
     after rain, from the light
-formed
     interstices.



     3
                                                                                        Catching On

     When it comes again, this coming to grips,
impossibly,
     with more to discuss than privatizing toll-lanes,
than the local personals
     or stardom on its arses, there's more, to be sure,
to this warming planet
     and elections, to the calculus say, the cinema,
the physics itself at stake,
     and the robins vanishing into tree-strung ivy
with their worm-loads     : the
     raison granola if you will, the rafflings made new
by their instructions,
     an evening's strung simplicity, so long as breath
or sentence, as
     applications of light or scent, the costly grammars
minds could not have done without
     serveour seasons well, now that they've fixed
the rims
     and hung the nets for summer, and the parks,
the solitudes catching on,
     make clear, by the second or fifth volumes
of the cycle,
     the cant of prophecy say, of the perplexities
kids have come to get the hang of,
     before there were painted lines, defining,
refining codes of conduct,
     and a singular unready audience, filling
the chairs around
     the tulip-ringed memorial, the half
decades say, evolved
     in studied ignorance, declaring
the dawn bed-times,
     the sense     we began
like this,
     or in any other
     -wise.


Robert Lietz