throats of swans

throats of swans

i’ve scooped out the violins,
their insides filled with violence,
that time in Michigan on the pontoon
when we bumped the dead swan.
she’d been netted and strangled.
i was thankful for our lack of both speedboat and canoe –
one would have ripped through the bird,
the net lashed around the motor.
the other would have been silent oars dipping past lily pads,
the possibility of hearing winged ghosts
inside our water-silence,
next to that space the four of us reserve for divorce.

my family has built orchestras from questions.
flutes,
saxophones,
percussion.
i never could decide how to love him through music
so i offered him a poem instead, a pen from my bedroom,
some exchange of syllables that didn’t involve the public.
i still store violins inside our attic crawlspace
where he can run to me on all fours.

forever she will collect his atoms,
string them like Christmas lights from the eves of her heart.
never will she forget the way her wedding ring crumbled into sawdust:
a collection for a carpenter king’s explanations.
pass him his supper,
a plate filled with caviar and sour cream,
things i won’t eat,
things to keep my skinny body a question-marked clue,
an outcome for his cheating.

moving past someone has never felt so delicious,
like sheets in summer slipping from night limbs,
coiling on the floor,
leaving me to dream about morning alarm clock radios.

Copyrighted by Nathan Buck 2007.