downy rattlesnake
plantain leaves
always a start
still twisted
from its rush to leaf out
lady’s-slipper orchid
the blue-headed vireo’s
vireo vireo
sounds blue now
pale pipes scorched
and straightened by sex
corpse plants
Disaster capitalism
Up and to my office, where Mr. Andrews comes, and reckoning with him I get 64l. of him. By and by comes Mr. Gawden, and reckoning with him he gives me 60l. in his account, which is a great mercy to me. Then both of them met and discoursed the business of the first man’s resigning and the other’s taking up the business of the victualling of Tangier, and I do not think that I shall be able to do as well under Mr. Gawden as under these men, or within a little as to profit and less care upon me.
Thence to the King’s Head to dinner, where we three and Creed and my wife and her woman dined mighty merry and sat long talking, and so in the afternoon broke up, and I led my wife to our lodging again, and I to the office where did much business, and so to my wife.
This night comes Sir George Smith to see me at the office, and tells me how the plague is decreased this week 740, for which God be praised! but that it encreases at our end of the town still, and says how all the towne is full of Captain Cocke’s being in some ill condition about prize-goods, his goods being taken from him, and I know not what. But though this troubles me to have it said, and that it is likely to be a business in Parliament, yet I am not much concerned at it, because yet I believe this newes is all false, for he would have wrote to me sure about it.
Being come to my wife, at our lodging, I did go to bed, and left my wife with her people to laugh and dance and I to sleep.
come a reckoning
I think I shall be able
to profit off it
the plague increases still
but like a parliament not much concerned
we laugh to sleep
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 4 October 1665.
The Hollow (12)
a self-closing gate
among 200-year-old oaks
its rusty note
smothered in leaf duff
the violet’s self-fertilized
alter ego
ah to be
both dapper and invisible
striped wintergreen
ignored by
a pileated woodpecker
the dust from her drill
Querida
Mother cleaned the spare room, changed
the sheets, put the best folded towels
on the bed, mopped the bathroom tiles
in preparation for father’s cousin
the congressman bringing his querida,
his Korean mistress, to our home.
He’d agreed we’d house her for the week
or until primo’s wife cooled off and stopped
accosting hotel managers in town or waiting
for a lobby ambush. Like an act in a soap
opera: the furtiveness, the nighttime visits
during which mother was curt with father
(not more, as she valued her sense
of good breeding)— inferring that
what went down with one
could very well be her fate.
Her friend the engineer’s wife caused
a scandal just weeks before: crazed,
running into the foam in her nightgown
with her husband’s gun and threatening
to kill herself unless he left
his whores. I learned querida
means dearest one, darling; but like
the tiny loop and flourish in the Q
it also meant the female you lusted
after outside the circle that signified
your marriage. This one had skin
like porcelain, a tiny waist, hair long
and dark held in place by one gold barette.
How old was she? Before she was taken away,
mother had softened, but only
toward her. They’d talk in lowered voices,
dunk cookies in their tea. She took the other
woman’s measure, promised she’d sew her
a proper dress: simple sheath, jewel neck-
line; no zippers, only hooks and eyes.
Graveyard shift
Up, and to my great content visited betimes by Mr. Woolly, my uncle Wight’s cozen, who comes to see what work I have for him about these East India goods, and I do find that this fellow might have been of great use, and hereafter may be of very great use to me, in this trade of prize goods, and glad I am fully of his coming hither. While I dressed myself, and afterwards in walking to Greenwich we did discourse over all the business of the prize goods, and he puts me in hopes I may get some money in what I have done, but not so much as I expected, but that I may hereafter do more. We have laid a design of getting more, and are to talk again of it a few days hence.
To the office, where nobody to meet me, Sir W. Batten being the only man and he gone this day to meet to adjourne the Parliament to Oxford.
Anon by appointment comes one to tell me my Lord Rutherford is come; so I to the King’s Head to him, where I find his lady, a fine young Scotch lady, pretty handsome and plain. My wife also, and Mercer, by and by comes, Creed bringing them; and so presently to dinner and very merry; and after to even our accounts, and I to give him tallys, where he do allow me 100l., of which to my grief the rogue Creed has trepanned me out of 50l.. But I do foresee a way how it may be I may get a greater sum of my Lord to his content by getting him allowance of interest upon his tallys.
That being done, and some musique and other diversions, at last away goes my Lord and Lady, and I sent my wife to visit Mrs. Pierce, and so I to my office, where wrote important letters to the Court, and at night (Creed having clownishly left my wife), I to Mrs. Pierces and brought her and Mrs. Pierce to the King’s Head and there spent a piece upon a supper for her and mighty merry and pretty discourse, she being as pretty as ever, most of our mirth being upon “my Cozen” (meaning my Lord Bruncker’s ugly mistress, whom he calls cozen), and to my trouble she tells me that the fine Mrs. Middleton is noted for carrying about her body a continued sour base smell, that is very offensive, especially if she be a little hot. Here some bad musique to close the night and so away and all of us saw Mrs. Belle Pierce (as pretty as ever she was almost) home, and so walked to Will’s lodging where I used to lie, and there made shift for a bed for Mercer, and mighty pleasantly to bed.
This night I hear that of our two watermen that use to carry our letters, and were well on Saturday last, one is dead, and the other dying sick of the plague. The plague, though decreasing elsewhere, yet being greater about the Tower and thereabouts.
what work I do
is to get some money
but not so much that my pretty hands
come to grief
trepan my head
carrying about bad music
pierce this night
to let the plague out
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 3 October 1665.
The Hollow (11)
water standing
in a raccoon footprint
from here
Plummer’s Hollow Run
deer fence
a sudden understory
of shrubs and forbs
protected from deer
for nearly two decades now
this plot thickens
Smilax
they say her thorniness drove a man
wildflowery
Exceptionalism
The viral video shows a white woman speaking up
for two hispanic women being harassed by another
white woman at a grocery store for chatting
in Spanish in the cereal aisle. No you don’t,
she says forcefully, marching after her
and taking out her phone to call the police.
The other woman sputters something about respect,
which she demands but ironically can’t give to other
humans just because they don’t look or sound
like her. And It’s my country, as if this whole
continent had a picket fence winding around it,
a gated driveway, a two-car garage: one book
for family and friends and another for the help—
one really meaning separate, apart, not unified.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Lumbermen
We having sailed all night (and I do wonder how they in the dark could find the way) we got by morning to Gillingham, and thence all walked to Chatham; and there with Commissioner Pett viewed the Yard; and among other things, a teame of four horses come close by us, he being with me, drawing a piece of timber that I am confident one man could easily have carried upon his back. I made the horses be taken away, and a man or two to take the timber away with their hands. This the Commissioner did see, but said nothing, but I think had cause to be ashamed of.
We walked, he and I and Cocke, to the Hill-house, where we find Sir W. Pen in bed and there much talke and much dissembling of kindnesse from him, but he is a false rogue, and I shall not trust him, but my being there did procure his consent to have his silk carried away before the money received, which he would not have done for Cocke I am sure. Thence to Rochester, walked to the Crowne, and while dinner was getting ready, I did there walk to visit the old Castle ruines, which hath been a noble place, and there going up I did upon the stairs overtake three pretty mayds or women and took them up with me, and I did ‘baiser sur mouches et toucher leur mains’ and necks to my great pleasure: but, Lord! to see what a dreadfull thing it is to look down the precipices, for it did fright me mightily, and hinder me of much pleasure which I would have made to myself in the company of these three, if it had not been for that. The place hath been very noble and great and strong in former ages. So to walk up and down the Cathedral, and thence to the Crowne, whither Mr. Fowler, the Mayor of the towne, was come in his gowne, and is a very reverend magistrate. After I had eat a bit, not staying to eat with them, I went away, and so took horses and to Gravesend, and there staid not, but got a boat, the sicknesse being very much in the towne still, and so called on board my Lord Bruncker and Sir John Minnes, on board one of the East Indiamen at Erith, and there do find them full of envious complaints for the pillageing of the ships, but I did pacify them, and discoursed about making money of some of the goods, and do hope to be the better by it honestly. So took leave (Madam Williams being here also with my Lord), and about 8 o’clock got to Woolwich and there supped and mighty pleasant with my wife, who is, for ought I see, all friends with her mayds, and so in great joy and content to bed.
in the raw timber
I see nothing of the hill
but ruins
what a dreadful thing it is
to look down the precipice
into a grave
board on board
men full of pillage making money
of some honest joy
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 2 October 1665.
The Hollow (10)
birch roots
turned stilts
a hollow in the shape of a stump
desire path
deer cutting across
this trench of a trail
raised high in a claw
of upturned roots
an ordinary rock
smooth sandstone
the empty seas of the first
great extinction
Directive
The lab tech asks me
to make a fist after she swabs
the inside of my arm, tightening
the tourniquet.
When the needle goes
in and the blood rises, she asks
if I’ve made arrangements for
a living will, an advance
directive. I can’t think
of what to say to the dark
swirl of viscous liquid pouring
as if without effort from me
into the glass vials, to
the fold of gauze pressed
on the site and covered with
a band-aid. What do we do
with things that move
forward despite anything?
From Middle to Old
English: willen, wollen;
meaning to will, to choose,
to wish. As in to be seized
by the desire for morning light,
wood smells, cold salt air.