Joe Wilkins
Invocation with Fire on the Horizon
Tell me your first meadow was enough.
At your every step the oxeye daisies bowed
their heavy, bright heads. I wove the green
stems of them in your flyaway curls.
Thus crowned, thus honored, you giggled,
hiccuped, and somer -saulted down
the mountain's bright slope, came up
at wood's edge, where in deep
duff and shadow we left un- touched the fawn
lily's fragile unfurling. Daughter, forgive
me. In the hard years to come when you breathe
the smoke of centuries, remember, please,
we made once angels of ourselves,
hand-in-hand, on our backs, in the meadow.
Anniversary
once we dusk exited the freeway no-
where shadows leaned from bitterbrush crushed cups
we exited two wheels grinding gravel
loud grinding shadow wind-strewn bottles cans
a child’s frilled sock one fingerless glove crushed
cups all things abandoned mislaid like down
the steep draw a scatter scattered bones rib
leg wing of spine our quiet tires dusk light
sifting dust we were so young & where no-
where we exited & were dusk nowhere
trash & gravel canted shadows yawing
draw bone scatter bitterbrush almost blue
we were young once in Wyoming we made
love we dusk were nowhere on our way here
These Green Days
Careful, the trail is slim & twists
through nettle & nootka rose, the eyes
of thimbleberries alive
with bees. One loose rivertooth.
The morning cool shivers
candy flower, larkspur, columbine—
every blue a secret I tell you, every red
one I don’t. Hidden
behind a drippy veil of fern—
maidenhair & lady—dipper nestlings
squeal & shriek
for a beakful of bugs. Our son—
he is, my goodness, bigger now
than me—cocks an ear
to hear, says, That reminds me,
I’m hungry. Silly us,
we confuse for a moment river clatter
with wren song,
& beneath the noon sun
a rope of sourceless rot-scent loops
& unloops. Naturally, we invent
ridiculous explanations
for on the river gravel the red curlicues
of shed salmonberry petals—
the tears of snakes, the eyelashes
of dragons, all an eagle leaves
of a cutthroat. Each night
we sleep close & warm. Each day
our ankles tell a lacy, blood-daubed tale
of creek & scramble. It’s true,
the astonishment
we call daughter has everknown
the lean of alders, the ragged reach
of devil’s club. So,
yesterday, low clouds unraveling, threads
of light stitching ridge
to ridge, I turned & hiked a long way
upriver. Wet rocks pressed
against my bones.
The sky cast its blue hook,
& I bit. I pretended I was alone. I couldn’t
do it. I knew you
were in the river too.
Joe Wilkins is the author of two novels, The Entire Sky and Fall Back Down When I Die, both of which garnered wide critical acclaim. He is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers, and four collections of poetry, including When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award, and, most recently, Pastoral, 1994. His work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Harvard Review, Ecotone, Copper Nickel, The Sun, and Orion. He lives with his family in western Oregon.
Artwork: “Tremble/Wake” by Daniel Lurie
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