by Sean Lause

Cockatiel not you


Cockatiel,
not you,
a yellow and orange
assertion.
Bright with her own meanings,
clatters round the outside
of her cage,
without fear,
flourishing her freedom.

Her eyes, seeds of darkness,
see all that is not
you, see you too, see
dual worlds, one on each side,
her head a ball turret,
tail a trailing spear.
feather in her cap.

She whistles “Whataru?”
won’t wait for an answer,
explores the floor,
foraging as she goes,
mounts the top of an armchair
renowned for its emptiness,
spreads her wings and sings
her triumph, not yours.

Outside the wide windows,
madness screams in the trees.
But she sings and sings so expertly,
the madness is not yours.
												






Such magic


Just off U.S. Route 30,
past Mansfield Penitentiary
and the Noah’s Ark Museum,
houses turn magically to trailers,
gardens to crippled back yards,
and cars to weary mounds of rust.
It’s a rare magic.

A back road hobbles round a bend.
Follow it, you audience volunteer,
keep turning, turning,
past incantations in the weeds,
under a dove-pale moon
and the exit-less stars.

What magician guides you down this mystery?
Here you may find me behind the show,
the wizard’s helper smoking on his break.
Have a look around, is this real or dream,
a graveyard filled with cars instead of bodies!

Note how the rust in this farm truck
has disappeared most of the front door.
The steering wheel of this wrecked Ford
is slammed straight through the engine,
the windshield gone, driver nowhere to be seen.
And here’s a magic gutted school bus,
with poison oak for children in its windows.

A prestidigitator might say: “Well at least it’s hidden from sight.
Barbed wire asterisks yield no clues.”
But I say: Such magic is required training
to hide the poor inside this land of riches.


												
												
												
												

Their art


Wasps are spinning their nest
in what used to be my back window.

Their intricate legs work,
my mind trembles.

They enter and leave their perfect caves,
the sun touching them blue or bottle-green.

They hold their wings down tight,
bullets that wound the air.

Have they journeyed here from outer space
to gauge my knowledge of earth?

I cannot read them yet,
though my blood ticks time with their wings.

Their eyes are black seeds
glinting in the sun.
I stand, approach, press palm to glass,
though they ignore me,
busy stitching their lower heaven.

My breathing slows and calms.
They weave round and through their creation,
though some, the sentinels,
line the sill in perfect punctuation.

The glass is cool to my cheek,
the sun a throbbing vacancy of blue.




												
												
											
													
												
The uniform


My big brother and I bought our Yankee caps
with our allowance, nineteen sixty-three,
he in joy, I in despair. I hated the blue,
so dark and sincere.

We stopped at the Pizza Planet,
where the cook chased us out into North Street
with a pizza crust cutter, screaming
“THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN!”

I was six. Didn’t know what a Yankee was,
what “Confederate” meant,
had never been south of Columbus,
or heard of Appomattox.

I only knew I loved the rebel grey.
To me it was all beauty, its smoky shade,
and flag of mysterious meaning,
a pure rebellion from all I did not know.

I imagined my general’s uniform
until it turned real, triumphing
over the arrogant, evil blue,
I played my countless victories in the sun.

Never heard the shot that killed me
Some blue marksman hidden in the sky.
I watched a rose unfold from my heart,
turning my grey to red.

I fell to the green and growing
laughing and crying at once,
just another boy lost in time,
never to regain his secret world.

												



												

Death is a bad mechanic


Old age is the only expensive car I ever bought,
hoping it would last my remaining days.
Then one day I go to make a U-turn 
and your damn steering wheel pulls off in my hands.
Time resents U-turns as a general rule,
and steer-less roads are uncooperative.

Then my newest tire blows, my brother gone before his time.
Your driver side door, my best friend in an 
emergency, pulls away like it wants to fly.
Now my back tires go, my mother and father with them.
My remaining tire whines just like my
and the rear-view mirror won’t stop weeping.

The only map is a tangle of arteries and veins
that seems to lead everywhere and nowhere.
My clutch has become my aorta,
and jams like a really bad rock band.
And now the mind is all on the engine,
praying it won’t cough, stall, and stop.

This is when I rediscover religion,
a new incarnation of faith and fear,
the radio blubbering please no, not now,
not here, this is ridiculous, can’t I just explode?
Goddamn you, God, just guide me home.
Is this your idea of humor?

And I dream of my Matchbox car race track
I drew on my mother’s kitchen table,
with chalk for lines, a wet rag for smooth lanes,
the cars calmly aligned, rules and pit stops
for any needed repair, and no one ever died,
and the track, its own world, revolved forever.

Sean Lause teaches English at Rhodes State College in Lima, Ohio and at Lima Central Catholic High School.  His poems have appeared in The Minnesota Review, The Alaska Quarterly, Another Chicago Magazine, The Beloit Poetry Journal and Illuminations.