Grasshoppers
You perforate the lid
of the ice-cream tub you
sacrificed from your re-
cycled container hoard
with the tips of the kitchen
shears. Enough to let air in
but not them out. You wait
watching on the bench as i
wade through the bed of blades,
eyes scanning, each step halting,
careful, drawn, for any break
in the windsway of the spikelets
and seedheads. Twitch of antennae,
shift of weight on the backward hing-
ing appendages. You shout to stamp
the ground, boy! Scare them out!
And we did, that day, observe the tacit
intimacy granted failures. You,
to force to face his fears, your strange
indoors child, me, that could
not dare to feel an insect writhing
in my clenched hand, to wriggle
free from the familiar grip
of your disappointment.
← →
