5. “Buying in the Country”

From AS WELL AS CAN BE EXPECTED
Selected poems, including Things need not be this way.
by Richard L. Rose

Buying in the Country

This tick’s a mechanism
like a pocket watch
with eight black legs
whose ticking clock
counts a meal a year
until blood-berry bursts.

If there’s a swerve we’re from,
as ancient atomists
and good gray poet tell,
these millimeter specks,
who draw more fear
than blood and swell
obscenely in dream homes
and gardens, lie closer
to the linear, steady tick
and tock of violence
and consequence
we’d hoped to go around.

Here’s the deal (Yes, there’s a deal — although no coins or bitcoins are involved): If you are reading these poems, we are communicating and maybe even communing. Except I don’t know about it as long as you keep your peace. Please make a response, even if it’s only “Duly noted.”