<\/p>\n

The Truest of Our Offerings<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sorry to mention the chorus of cicadas<\/p>\n

and the constellations of fireflies<\/p>\n

blinking where I\u2019ve just looked or am about to.<\/p>\n

Reader, do you say fireflies or lightning bugs?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s lightning bugs where I\u2019m from. We also<\/p>\n

said locusts not cicadas. Likewise bats, apologies<\/p>\n

for the entry of the bats who skim the pool<\/p>\n

right now and yaw right back into a sky<\/p>\n

always lighter, it seems, than it should be<\/p>\n

for bats. Their bellies flash ochre above<\/p>\n

the faux-Aegean tiling around the edge.<\/p>\n

My daughter saw her first bat yesterday.<\/p>\n

She thinks there\u2019s just the one or maybe two<\/p>\n

in Indiana, and therefore the world, swinging<\/p>\n

as if on wires, toy bats eating toy mosquitoes<\/p>\n

then drawn back up somehow like props or puppets.<\/p>\n

I have to tell her they\u2019re not bad, mosquitoes,<\/p>\n

despite the welts and the maddening itch.<\/p>\n

They just drink blood, the way mosquitoes do.<\/p>\n

They keep the bats well fed and in the air.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d think it would be the other way around,<\/p>\n

that she would see the bats like blood avengers,<\/p>\n

something indeed to fear. And yet, like gods<\/p>\n

or demons, they have limits, and weaknesses,<\/p>\n

what with the intercession of mosquitoes,<\/p>\n

who sing them from their caves and bring<\/p>\n

from us the truest of our offerings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gun Cabinet<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Felt-lined, soft-looking as a pelt inside,<\/p>\n

guns lined up with their barrels<\/p>\n

rested in the scallops of the brace board<\/p>\n

like a docent\u2019s cared-for clutch of iron.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He\u2019d built the doors with pointed glass<\/p>\n

so you could see them shut up<\/p>\n

but the little latch and key were only<\/p>\n

decorations like on a girl\u2019s diary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shotgun, rifle, shotgun, pellet gun,<\/p>\n

all down the line like that, and below<\/p>\n

in a drawer the shells and cartridges<\/p>\n

rolled like grapeshot in the hold.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He scribed the layout of the scrollwork<\/p>\n

on the molding and skirting<\/p>\n

freehand with pencil and coffee can,<\/p>\n

then jigsawed out the Fibonacci curves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just lumberyard pine, soft and buttery,<\/p>\n

easy to dent but pliant in its<\/p>\n

surrender to the sanding block,<\/p>\n

any divots wetted so to rise<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

like welts and be smoothed down,<\/p>\n

then the whole thing stained<\/p>\n

to look like other wood, walnut,<\/p>\n

wiped of its excess and shellacked<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and rubbed to a matte gloss<\/p>\n

with fine steel wool. The felt<\/p>\n

was the last thing, the backing,<\/p>\n

the something else inside to take<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the weight of the blued steel<\/p>\n

with grace, a reminder<\/p>\n

of something we could not quite say<\/p>\n

but were a little shamed by.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorry to mention the chorus of cicadas \/ and the constellations of fireflies <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5113"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5329,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5113\/revisions\/5329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}