The Soft Drugs
Colin Cheney
After, in the Queen’s park, our son stalked
the feral cats in flowering blood gingers.
I was better, or the world wasn’t me.
Everything seemed about fear: water,
not enough water, the green threatening
to take everything back. I saw in his eye,
wee maenad, the pigeon with a sick wing
they wanted to pull apart, just to see.
You were smiling, & I was distracted
waiting on voices in the fire of the forest,
the blackboard tree leaves I couldn’t
hear anymore, the drugs I was on.
I lifted him away from what he was about
to do, this creature you & I mechanicked
for the world. The cats scattered—
Everything I don’t want you to fathom
I stash inside this father holding his son
under star blossoms & the fallen green fruit
of the pong pong, the suicide tree whose seeds
give an untraceable poison. His hands clenched
my sweated-through shirt—& the bird
remained unmoving, warm, broken
on the sharp tropical grass under hibiscus,
under golden shower. Here, then:
I’ve made you these little jam jar terraria
thinking you might see here, rough autopsy,
something, if not joy, close to honesty.