Thursday, October 27, 2022

THE INCUMBENT

Something very much like 
treasury mounds—
fortunes of wood chips 
and gold leaves and cinders 

over which 
a last few worker bees 
and rodent sentinels scurry—

are piled up high 
beneath this throne 
of the last remaining 
queenly robin: 

a bony
upturned hand of oak—

her sticky bare head, 
which once humbled her 
in spring, 

now her majestic 
autumn crown;

the trilling intermezzos 
of westerly wind, 

which once served 
as scourge of her 
balance in this place,

now flow about her 
in decorous folds: a royal 
byzantine cloak.