Wendy Carlisle

Grub


Lyle’s trailer full of banjos and exciters burned down, gone in a flash. Gone the Stratocaster with the bent tuners; gone the Humbuckers and strings. His cousin Allen couldn’t save it though he tried since it was him who set the fire on accident burning yard trash. The Volunteer Fires got there late & stood around a while & watched the melted metal steam, then shook hands all around & drove their big truck off. Folks gathered up what they could, plates & cups & money & still good bed linens plus the usual double-dozen casseroles & dropped them off to his uncle’splace. Lyle ate good for weeks. The morning after the fire even the cat, a stone killer, brought a chipmunk and laid it, still warm, on the rug under Lyle’s microwave. It’s a southern custom, the grief covered-dish. Does anyone still call it grub?


Of Motion


In the dream, I am
always in motion always
leaving or arriving, traveling.

After such transit, there comes
the question, what
happened while I was gone

to Paris or Kathmandu? 
As if
there were answers
in the lawns and side-walks of

waking, as if the hillside
and spring mud
wouldn’t also spin and hurtle

as if each day didn’t migrate,
relocate, shift into a gallop.


Little Hats


Six million bats—
less or more—
remember, they
are not little
Draculas or
airborne hats—
thousands of
hibernating
“little browns”
fall all at once
seven species
act strangely
flying outside
in daylight
or in winter
bats clustering
near access to
their hibernacula
seven species
with flesh-eating
fungus on
nose and wing
seven whose
pale snouts
give them away.
Look closer
under your scrutiny
don’t they
just seem
Teddy bear fuzzy?
Their little faces
are so luscious
and the scientists
try so hard
but scientists
are helpless
to find a cure
nevertheless
we must be careful
not to flip
a chicken bone
into their cave.
Who knows
about etiology?

**hibernacula: caves and mines where bats hibernate


Wendy Carlisle lives and writes in the Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of two books, Reading Berryman to the Dog and Discount Fireworks, both Jacaranda Books and four chapbooks, most recently Chapbook from Platypus Press, UK, due in December. See more about her and her work atwww.wendytaylorcarlisle.com.