Nine Senryu Poems
Scattered beads of mercury on my grandfather's cellar floor;
the weight of Nessun Dorma on the floorboards above
flashing membrane of the raptor's eye
and children joining hands in the dark
hailstones through the wings of butterflies,
and the windshields of excommunicated saints
microphones hung over Beijing.
and two Neogene box turtles in Pete's bomb shelter
when they tell you stars don't fall,
remember the heartthrob, Troy Donahue
cupping his birthmark,
my father's infinite sea
the dust of ciphers on the habits of Catholic nuns
and the long division of body and soul
stepping back from the gassed lemons,
and the open-faced fans in the windows of screaming cats
the Zero-G of three beers in,
and the numerology of sparrows on the sagging wire
Patrick Sweeney is a short-form poet and devotee of the public library.
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