"Saturation" The Post Office Poems - Literary Project

Sorrow

Sorrow is the heart, a beast,
a sparrow turned away
from you,

from the face,
of the sun
still warming

the empty cage
in the room of my ribs.
And the river

which ran so freely,
now knows its name,

oh sorrow,

oh dear heart,
dear beast,
dear sun.

Let me never forget,
your warmth,
your face,
your river.

We are an empty cage
here in the room of ribs.

I can't bear to see your face
right now, sun, oh sun.
How I loved you.

And from here
who knows what strange steps
we will take. My anchor pulled,
off I drift

in a boat
warm with sorrow
sparrow face,
a river
unable to carry you.

Nanny and the Mouse

There's a mouse in the car she said,
gasping, giggling and beginning to cry.
I listened to the phone message smiling.
Under the tire in the trunk a mouse
put together a cozy arrangement
of fuzz, thread, hay and other
fine collectibles. Mice droppings
were left like tiny footprints
across the rear seat. Now when
Louise is driving to the big house
where she looks after the twins
and runs the household, she
thinks she feels the mouse
run over her leg. She wiggles
in alarm trying to keep her
hands on the wheel.

Today she came back to the farm
to check the dogs. Guess what?
she asks, her voice rising like
bells and wind. I found a mouse!
Dead! In the driveway at the house,
dead and flat. What does this mean?

We talk about what it could mean
and nothing means anything. It could
be her mouse but she never parks
in the driveway at work. I hid it
from the girls, she says. I wonder
how she picked it up, where she
thought to place it. What its
tiny flat body looked like dangling
from her fingers.

I wonder what the omen means. And wait,
to see what happens next.