by Barbara Duffey
Agape
The other children ran away
when the park ranger slit
and splayed the trout’s belly, showed
the guts like bills in a wallet.
She took out the heart and held it
in her open hand as if it were a bug
found on her walk to the lake.
Behind picnic tables, the children
screamed. My son stepped forward and touched
the heart in solemn ritual. “Super,
super soft,” he said. Still, the heart pumped
on its borrowed palm. It flitted wing-like
slower, then slower still. It was shaped
not like human hearts but like
a child’s drawing of a heart,
same color, a pink unseen
in nature until you slice it open.
Empirical
What if I removed from my house
the little proofs of what I’d done,
cans crushed at their waists in layers
and layers of papers, a box
of tacks and bowl of cherry pits?
The remote control in its throne
on the coffee table, the table’s
glass forest glowing in sunset
through miniblinds, my Mug Henge?
I can confirm I’ve received mail,
was an entity at specific
coordinates. What fell over
did so so slowly you could pretend
it wasn’t, thus not feel embarrassed
for me, viscous as syrup, sweetly creeping.
Barbara Duffey is the author of two poetry collections, most recently Simple Machines (2016), which won the 2015 Washington Prize. She has received fellowships from the NEA, the Jentel Foundation, and the South Dakota Arts Council. A professor of English at Dakota Wesleyan University, she lives in Mitchell, SD.
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