Barley Bees, Barlow Or
       

I made a body but not to be

my only other or everything
I need—that's still the acorns

my pocket holds and songs
I sing when the sun throws

a blanket over the ground.

I tell a story:

                The wind,
        that fiend, unhinged a cherry
                tree, and as it passed by—

        a lost cupboard that would be
                an ark—the rain
        sang "Take up, take up,"

                and so I took.

A broken storybook, I fable:

        Home again, home
                again and Found
        a baby, named it my own.

And if in a dream the body
comes to me—dictionary

in hand and opened to C—
points index, index and falls to

a fractured mimicry, I will sing:

                Foundling,
        foundling, who made you—
                you awkward bell

        and fallen top?

And I will sing that I am no
better, that I charm

ineffectually, leave more

often with empty palms
and mistake every second

for a white flag and new ground.

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Copyright © 2013 Daniel Carter All rights reserved
from Here Both Sweeter
The Kent State University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission