Five Poems by Sharon Waller Knutson

 

Cactus Wren

 

The brown backed

white bellied bird

chirps like the smoke

detector as flames

dance in the fireplace,

 

frantically flying back

and forth from the counters

to the cabinets to the windowsills.

Most likely a sister or brother

of the cholla dweller who

tours the kitchen two weeks

ago as my husband hauls

in groceries from the Cadillac.

 

Could be a cousin to the cactus wren

we find perched on the ice cream cone

cookie jar in the dining room a decade ago.

Or an ancestor of Charley who scolds my husband

for building a house in his habitat two decades ago.

 

The current visitor swoops over my head

and disappears into the dark living room.

We go about our business until we hear

a screeching SOS call and the flapping of wings

and open the door and the bird follows the light

and disappears down the dirt driveway.

 

We breathe a sigh of relief until five days

later, I hear chirping again and find another

cactus wren flying through the house

and then every morning we hear chirping

and flapping, until we find

a missing vent on the side of the house

and a nest in the attic where the wrens

are hopping down into the house

like tenants exploring hidden rooms.

 

 

Buzzard

 

She struts across

the lush green lawn

like an old woman

 

in a black raincoat,

face and neck flushed red

as if she had just downed

 

a bottle of Burgundy

at the corner bar

where she had sloshed

 

a drop of wine on her leg

and had abandoned

her umbrella and galoshes.

 

 

Gila Monster

 

A cross between a dinosaur

and a crocodile, the pink

and black scaled reptile

slowly drags its heavy two

foot long body across

the gravel road half a mile

from where I hike. What’s

that? I think and run

in its direction.  Camera

in one hand, water bottle

in the other, I catch up

with the curious creature

in a clearing along the road.

 

As I snap photo after photo,

it stares and squints

as the flash hits its eyes

and then plods towards

me, forked tongue

flickering, dark eyes

shooting bullets but still

I don’t stop snapping photos

until I take a selfie

and hear it grunting in my ear..

 

I run home panting

and when the photo

pops up on Google,

I realize I was up close

and personal with an angry

Gila Monster with a grudge.

Once they bite, their massive

jaws won’t let go without

intervention, Wikipedia says.

Their saliva is venomous.

 

I envision what might have

happened had I not

had the brains to run.

I plan on patting the cute

little creature on the head,

but he latches onto my leg

and I feel excruciating pain.

 

And hobble down the road,

where there is no traffic,

dragging a heavy weight.

I collapse and hours later

my husband driving home

from work finds me

in a ditch along the road

shackled to a Gila Monster

like escaped convicts, foaming

at the mouth or worse.

 

After the Cat Dies

 

What I need is a kitten,

my friend from Idaho

says on the cell phone.

 

Since we live

in the Arizona desert

she suggests maybe

 

someone will drop

a litter off

in our front yard.

 

I don’t have time to

explain to her why

that is a bad idea

 

because I see a coyote

sniffing the ground

as he follows a trail

 

behind the waterfalls

where my son stands

puffing on a Marlboro.

 

And I don’t see Taco,

his bite sized

Chihuahua.

 

Just then I hear a yip

and a scratch on the door

as the coyote slinks away

 

as disappointed as hungry

truck drivers finding

all the cafes closed down.

 

Abandoned

 

The tourists find the newborn calf

still wet from birth,

trying to stand on wobbly legs

 

beside the road out in the middle

of the Arizona desert and rescue her

and drop her off at the fire station.

 

My husband volunteers to reunite

the calf with her mother and hauls

the bawling baby back to the desert.

 

Up the road, he spots the mother,

a red heifer with milk sacks

slapping against her side, as she runs

 

with a couple of yearlings

like a teenage mother too young

to be saddled with a nursing infant.

 

He fails to catch up with her

and she disappears into the mountains.

By then the sun is setting

and the coyote pack is prowling

the yard hunting for fresh meat.

We take the calf in the house

 

where she sleeps in the foyer

until the rancher shows up

to take her to her mother.

 

Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in Arizona. She has published nine poetry books including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (Flutter Press 2014,) What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say and Trials & Tribulations of Sports Bob (Kelsay Books 2021) and Survivors, Saints and Sinners and Kiddos & Mamas Do the Darndest Things (Cyberwit 2022.) Her work has also appeared recently in Discretionary Love, Impspired, GAS Poetry, Art and Music, The Rye Whiskey Review, Black Coffee Review, Lothlorien Review, Silver Birch Press,, Trouvaille Review, ONE ART, Mad Swirl, The Drabble, Gleam, Spillwords, Muddy River Review, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, Red Eft Review and The Five-Two.