Meld Jacks

after Kenneth Fearing

An unbalanced easel
with a worn brittle frame
would disappear entirely among a shady grove
beneath songbirds and wind,
(or a discarded iron bed).
One thinks of cans floating in a bay
caressed by fingers of turtle grass.
One thinks of dew plucked from
arching leaves or rain sounding on rusted tin.

Whatever is gained is not what it seems.
Dew plucked from a pin cushion of leaves
is ephemeral - condensation on a fan blade
and tears on a bed sheet.
Being a vertebrate slave to history, Christ the tiger
paws his collarbone and spits into blind eyes.
On the mind's yellowed pages
the scene is lost in a film burnout.

Because sand will drift
in clouds in bucolic water until
it is burned to glass,
so will an easel sublimate and
saw grass is saw dust
and, "Let's just go inside. These things

are eating me alive." A mosquito
with benedictine on the breath

"Because how I'd love to satisfy you,
but you'll see I must be satisfied too."

Then, lay to sleep.
If I should ask, What are visions
if not God's chosen people
melding jacks