The Irises Poem by Lisa Russ Spaar

O silk, my throat closing around a sob.
That fly again, minute leaden tank, thread-hooves,

busy, busy, to whom I mean nothing.
Relief in this. Yet to me he's singing beside the dugout, the ditch,

cosmic with pathologies. A grave matter,
that perfume—father, mother, son, & daughter—

those phrases—no hands, no feet, how else depart,
eyes opened without ceasing—

why I can't disturb their bruised hymning,
why I gather them all inside, until I'll know—