From Under One Rock to Under Another

I no longer plunge into thickets of words,
no longer search for shy quails of psyche
or quivering childhood, startled like birds.

I stay to sidelines when tormented nouns
of imagined masochistic abuse
anguish a good reading, or abstract towns

of language masters who equate humdrum
with silence and not the ubiquitous
clatter of their text, twitter, chat and chum.

I prefer to read at the edge of the fence
that overlooks the simple home behind,
in touch where a touch is still a sense,

coyote’s loop of anticipation,
the raven’s rook and bobcat’s trampled lair,
the pill bugs sluggish matriculation

under one rock to under another,
the logic of not, would or should, but must
of breathe, eat, move, not of self but other.

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Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California. He works in mental health. He has contributed to Tar River Poetry, Williwaw Journal, Rabid Oak, and Red Wolf Journal.