June’s Coming

When June comes—you know—

the clover knows June,

rolling out yards of white for her.

Soon though the mulberries make a mess

of the summer sidewalk, birds’ magenta stain all over.

Drifters on broken bikes pedal the cinder alleys

past dying lilacs—rummaging,

balancing black bags of tin cans

while on a back stoop flashes a galvanized

aluminum tub full of top soil,

tiny leaves coming, going green,

radishes maybe.

Dead Courthouse Museums

Every heartland courthouse, dying or not,

has a dead museum

in a closet, an ancient display case,

a neglected corner where—gathered together

to preserve the ghosts—a rag-tag collection

huddles—stuffed owls, arrow-heads, lamp-lighters,

hand cartography, yellow-leathered books,

bone-knob canes, army medals

& jars with tonsil-like objects in solution.

Artifacts of the county history

no one knows, no one knows what to do with.

No money for a curator, hardly money

for the lights and floor polish of the grand building itself.

But these objets perdus cannot be thrown out,

they are sacred in some way, not sure what.