DMITRY BLIZNUIK

★ ★ ★ ★

POETRY

One-Legged Angels
 
A girl works in the garden.
She expertly wields a hoe and pruning shears,
looking like a surgeon on a giant’s body.
Asters and irises sedated by the garden hose
drool and wear silly grins.
A cat basks in the sun, self-conscious,
like a diva from a Titian painting.
I’m so happy I want to cry for joy: I am fired!
The unexpected free time runs around in circles
like a chicken with its head chopped off.
The girl looks at me and waves her hand.
Is it supposed to be symbolic?
A poet sweeping leaves from the streets,
a poet unloading trucks,
a poet covering someone else’s yard with grass seed,
a poet cutting reinforcing wire with an angle grinder,
a poet selling women’s footwear.
A life full of adventures in the style of Arthur Rimbaud.
You’ll be suntanned, seasoned, subtle, snake-like.
A bullet won’t find you, but radiculitis will.
So many centuries have passed, but poets
have never learned how to keep their feet on the ground.
One-legged angels,
herons not of this world.