NEW! Paul McCormick poem

Paul McCormick

PETRICHOR

Lately, when I dream of home, all the important people have turned to mice. It’s not that sycamores form a canopy to limit my words, but since you died, I’ve had to stand tiptoe on chair to watch the trains arrive beyond the fence line. Buttercups come in a flash.

And go. And what worries me is not whether today’s monkfish is today’s monkfish. “No those are bats.” “No those are swifts.” “No those are swallows.” --But how long he’s been iced. This goes on until the yearbook ends up in a hoax and the names are forgotten.

Festoon the warriors with quotes from Bartlett’s. The queen rodent, the one who’s jumped in the canal after her husband, assures me the bond market is stable. “You don’t look any different than before.” Not until she begins nibbling at my forefinger.

Was it really rhododendron that splayed so many in the hills?

For every bee there’s a man down and what looks like lunar haze is really just a lack of candy? I’m talking about the past: very little fool’s gold to assuage the moss-bitten locks, the underground city. The boy who confused the bat for a bird felt distorted.

Ergonomic deficiencies were the major culprit, though Seattle bore a thin lisp on the totem. When I say distorted I mean “looking through the fish tank.” I’ve shackled myself to the last tree and am preparing a statement for the film crews.

Here’s how it will go.