Learning to Whistle

Everything around me shrilled:
the splitting Bradford Pears, hail on the tin roof.
The hay field sang with the lowing cattle.

The middle of July,
when the sky was thick
with thunderstorms.

Taxed and overweight,
the wind was too slow
to escape even a six-year-old.

Finally,
caged between my jaws,
I toyed with it—
a cat with a catch.

I delighted as it cried
each time I tossed the
air through my teeth.

**

In the Jazz Musicians’ House

Where they couldn’t
pay for heat. Made circles
round the microphone
as if to start a fire.
Pursing the lips, delicately.
Moving the hands, delicately.
They played.

Like coaxing weepy sounds
from baby birds.

**

A Farm Hand Replies

You live on a farm and write your poems and call that farming.

Dear Robert, I do not know
How, up in the Northeast,
The fields you used to mow
Were that tame. How each meadow
Was that easy. At least

Include the sun,
Burning backs tomato red.
And for snakes, were there none
In the grass? you had fun,
Blistering your hands till they bled?

Dear Robert, I don’t believe you,
Now having spent the day hard
At work. What did you really do
Out there, enjoy the view?
Did you confuse a field and front yard?

I cannot relate to the task
You declawed and aestheticized.
Mine is so different. If you ask
Me, you put a mask
On the act. You even might have lied.