"Little Teatimes" by Jay Snodgrass

Once after a brunch of needles, pastry brown blood

Stains and fennel, you brandished

The length of hair at the caller knocking at the door,

Mocking birds scrabbling to fill

Up the morning with noise. Once after a breaking

Of limbs you leaned from the broken

Car window and pawed at the ground around my feet

Like a dog after a crime.

Once after the rain came to you like a blanket

Of clover, like a shawl of empty

Shoulders, you proclaimed that the future of wood

Was an axe. We embellished

Your waxing fever with polish and the electric

Wood sander for Christmas. Then

Once you learned to walk again, the lengths of tendon

Reworked into banisters of clean light

You stole a thimble of milk and every other tick

Of seconds from the clock. The refrigerator

Heaved a stony thrumming, compressing air

In gasps. One floor tile at a time

From the alternating patterns of worn browning cream

And burgundy scuffs, got up and marched

To the basement in regiments. Once you parted

The gift of a mirror into two rooms at once

The devil rang the door bell and you scuttled. Once

In a romance of broken rocks and asphalt

You went after the redness in a robin with the left over

Steak knives shivering in the drawer.