Talvikki Ansel Poems

Olive green of pond water, tea-
colored is the newt's body.
Legs stroking, it floats close
to the surface, lazily circles
...

The wasp's gray sphere,
papered layers I held
imagining the wings' heat
...

it's iron, the bottle
crouched on its white pedestal,
long beak spout and wide open handle
...

Tree of the musky pods split open,
of almond-shaped leaflets, taut skin,
the Cooper's Hawk picking off a fat pigeon
in the bank parking lot,
...

Smoothed ribbon, night light, once
there were wool dogs isolated
on an island off the sand spit.
My dovekie, my twisted strand of kelp
...

White putty under finger nails,
milky on fingerprints and the back of your t-shirt,
pushed between mullion and glass
...

Impossible to catalogue them all
because half are gone
the numbers of beans, speckled and mottled,
...

A vesper sparrow sings
against a melon and lavender striped
sky, on another card,
...

Summer's over, and we never even
drank at the Ocean House, that yellow
elegance they'll tear down this year.
...