Comatose with heat, the night slumps,
incubus over the clotted lake. Berserk
crickets, ubiquitous, chirr;
a frenzied moth pungs the screens.
No mail.
Crusts of lichen knit stone walls
and climb the shins of oaks stripped
to spine, their branches picked to a scrawl,
a barbed Saxon script.
Catalogues. One please remit.
The lake shuts in mastodon cold,
insipid as a pewter slide; churlish
winds dispute dominion
as difference dulls, congeals.
No mail.
Memory leaks. The salt lick
and hoof prints frozen by the lake
endure the malleting wind
chiseling ice into granite crags.
Two SASEs. No mail.
The larch sprouts leaves of morningales;
yarrow bobs in a rubbery field, and
the lake at play squirts sequined bass.
Mail.
Addressee unknown. Return to sender.
Wind scowls the lake, jouncing the pines,
lifts, like moths vaulting at night,
blinks of paper, exactly ripped.
William F Dougherty
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rural-free-delivery/
