by Catherine McGuire
1.
The hole he dug
at six, fit him well.
Year after year
he dug in the summer damp –
sometimes the whole family fit
most-times, just him.
2.
Few of us understand
the pupa that holds the larval moth; few
connect an inert hard shell
with wispy winged dancers.
Or visa versa.
3.
Graduating from Buster Brown hair
to an Our Gang crop that matched
his pixie grin; worsted wool onesie straps
sliding off thin sun-baked shoulders
as he paused
his impetuous excavation
to show off.
4.
The photos, mailed by an unknown neighbor,
arrived sudden as death. The cockeyed smile
now had a history; threads connected.
5.
Sunny boy
squunching your nose at me
from that stone wall
the Devil’s own gleam
in your eye
I’m all set, Master of this universe.
Unfazed by Depression
(his came later, lowercase)
he hunkered in the pea grit sand bunker
or perched on hot back steps
an armload of comics
sufficient for the summer.
6.
He dug a hole; he kept
digging. After a while
he never came out.
Catherine McGuire is a writer/artist with a deep interest in Nature, both human and otherwise. She’s had poems published for 3 decades, in publications such as New Verse News, FutureCycle, Portland Lights,Fireweed, and on a bus for Poetry In Motion. She has taught workshops around Oregon. Her chapbook, Palimpsests, was published by Uttered Chaos in 2011 and her first full-length book of poetry, Elegy for the 21st Century, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2016. She has three self-published chapbooks.