Our Daughters Ring Something That Sounds Like Bells

 

They begin with sin and its hooded jaw.

They part their yellow jackets, their hems

of dust taut as chimneys. Their hesitation

like luck, sunk in buckets that churn

and churn and churn toward a firmness

we mistake for certainty.

 

 

Ode to Waterloo

 

I love not you but your energy

of defeat, cling-clanging like bells

on the brick, your lucky fingers

smacking of blue. What’s left

to meet but this animal panic?