My Little Golden Book of Phobias

I want to think about beauty today the mock orange all indecent bloom o bees humming to themselves as they work through the stamen the pistil  smell of earth and rot

I want to imagine the workers coming from the train carrying their lunch pails brief cases backpacks as they shed their clothes and drop their shoes in the street their skin flecked with sunlight

I want to pilfer strawberries from the neighbors eat them with the dirt and stems smear their red tang on my cheeks

I want to sit and wait for the hummingbird flicking her green belly among the gladiolas her hover a miracle of hollow bones and thrum

I want to think about beauty today as the ships come into the grain elevators the air thick with chaff as they are loaded for China  Peru   Anatolia   their long chutes thundering with seed

With thanks to Rebecca.