~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Susan Swartwout

Beast

Fence-sitting in Georgia, I loved

watching the gentle equine gods

of my childhood. Only

the taut arch of a tensed neck,

the quiver of a bunched flank

betrayed their wild blood still

in green-broke muscles.

The mane, an undulation,

beckoned to move with the heave

of a body that stretched past

exhaustion to feel the intoxication

of being animal.

We’ve all been touched by beasts

who came in from the wild:

the indiscriminate dog’s tongue,

cat’s endless velvet belly, backyard

bird burble—a greeting across species

and eons. As familiars, they emerge

from the same earth as we,

incorruptibly naked.

Their days unwind, waiting for us

to appear in farmyard or doorway,

bringing sustenance or slaughter.

They suffer our moods and neglect,

our wars and wanderings.

In this hammered world, will these

bright beasts survive our dominion—

their simple words, their wisdom,

their attentions, freely given—and how

might we human animals deserve them?

Certain Joys in Uncertainty

My granny would say, Life is what happens

when you’re making other plans: the career path

my parents assigned me turned hard left from doctor

to wife, the little dog I adopted fears hands and laps

and walking leashed to me—uncertainty abounds,

and it dishevels time and space.

I try to shape uncertainty into a monument

of my Plans A and B, but it’s only shards

and sand. I make lists to tame uncertainty,

but it grasps my heart and squeezes hard.

If I embrace uncertainty like a parasite, feeding

on fears of tense futures, my life would diminish

into a thin shell of conspiracies and failures.

                                                                          But

when I take uncertainty’s trembling hand, palm up,

I can trace the heart line that runs through it, a record

of each time I saw sunshine slice through a cloud.

I’m carried through my days by floods pouring over

the paved path of my expectations. Yet I arrive alive,

with golden threads of sun woven into my hair,

until that final certainty will close my eyes. I bless the waters

for each moment I’ve landed safely on uncertain shores.

That moment when I trusted, my love

          became sun and moon to the terra firma of my soul.

That moment past the terrible dividing of birth, my newborn

          claimed my heart—awareness ripped in two,

          one half in thrall to that child forever.

That moment my fearful dog ran joyful across the yard,

          as if I were a beacon, and dropped my long-lost silver earring

          into my hand, her trust gleamed certain as the sun.

Destin

A flotilla of brown pelicans drifts by

my balcony window, dignified

in their upward swoops, comical

in loose-limbed dives. Sea oats

motion them onward from dunes

in beige waves that melt to gold

in the sunset. From far beyond shore,

rainclouds tumble over each other

in their eagerness to reach the beach,

then move on, subdued and ragged.

A woman, hands on child-splayed hips,

her swimsuit a faded siren red, tries

to corral her brood. She looks sidelong

at the lifeguard, a celebrity by virtue

of bronze and muscle. Spread for anyone,

the white silk sheet of beach sand

is shaken into waves by the heat. Its edge

settles down to the sea that reaches out

and pulls it taut with cerulean hands

for the tide to scrub into tomorrow’s tabula rasa.

Warm Weather

The first thing I did—after

setting down the box of zucchini 

I just picked, eager green shafts

that throw themselves from the world 

to my hand in total faith that I

will use them well—was to answer

the love text you sent, one in a line

of little notes we’ve been sneaking

to each other under the covers 

of technology all morning. It’s 12 o’clock,

which makes this one a nooner,

and even though you’re at work

and I have chores at home,

we’re touching in a frenzy the symbols

that fly on electric wind to our beloved.

It’s hot in the garden, and here

in Oregon’s droughty summer days

we make our own rain, water frequently,

everything must get wet.

Whatever thoughtless things we’ve done,

whatever thoughtful things we’ve left

unsaid, whatever hungers lie as yet

unsated in our haphazard shopping, 

your North Star heart still radiates my night sky,

the playlist you made me still hella bumps,

and in the garden, zucchinis dream of rain.

Susan Swartwout is the author of the poetry book Odd Beauty, Strange Fruit, 2 poetry chapbooks, and co-editor of 12 anthologies. She's professor emerita of creative writing and publishing, and founder/former director of a university press.