Brad Bostian
Up on the hill
in a mausoleum house
Boredom lies on the grass like stuck snails
And
leaves like coins fixed to the driveway.
Outside the
gardener kneels to milk a patch of weeds
Letting each handful draw from the
ground
While his heart beats in time to the flies
That skewer the
sweat of his forehead.
A door opens
and the butler bends
To give the cat its bowl of milk
As if it were
the red milk of rubies
Or the blood of indefinite life.
Inside the son
with wire-brush haircut
Lies back on elbows, breathing,
Holding a
newspaper and squeezing
The proper black essence of words.
Beside him on
brass
Teak wood hands pray
In white gravel that never mixes.
In a room
farther in, the patriarch
Who built it all when his gray-haired hands
Were busy as wasps, sits like an ant in amber.
He made his way to where
time flows;
It flowed like milk and honey over him
It flowed
And
flowed
And suddenly stopped.
