Sean Nevin

I've learned, has nothing

in common with the relentless

metronome of carpenter bees

ticking off the aluminum siding

like the steady hail of olive pits

spit through my open window

the summer I learned to shake

martinis without bruising the ice.

The human tongue, in disbelief, obsesses

at the tender pit of a tooth,

insists on entering the empty room again

and again until it cankers…

For ten days now, two luna moths remain

silk-winged and lavish as a double broach

pinned beneath the porch light of my cabin.

Two of them, patinaed that sea-glass green

of copper weather vanes nosing the wind,

the sun-lit green of rockweed, the lichen's

green scabbing-over of the bouldered shore…

For two full days the sirens

realized their high notes

in the quivering saucers

stacked inside cupboards…