The Inexplicable
  By Ann Filemyr

Startled by the reverberating whirr of hummingbird wings
the honey bee kneels deeper in Sacred datura. My sister’s
son drops a blue marble in a blue lake beneath blue
clouds. Across the desert the wind flowers in the yellow
pollen heat, and I write wondering whether
the Peace Studies professor will awaken from his coma,
the landscape painter will lose her sight, will waves
erode a distant shore. I have seen how light falls,
how tides rise, how the sky throws shadows down.
At thirteen we lied to strangers
threw stolen cash across a bar
got drunk and hitch-hiked back roads
dangerous and endangered
as our father studied sundogs
concluding that the endless horizon
curved above him like the body of his mistress
while our mother made grape jam
from the wild grapes behind the barn.
No one knows why
I write my heart
wondering how to be
female about it
and just state life
for what it is