Alex Miller

On autumn mornings the cement stump
was sprinkled with green shards: walnuts
squirrels had brought there, poised like lookouts,
their stout teeth rasping to the pulp.

Walking the yard each day I'd brush
the well cap clear, next day find
the acrid wreck renewed, rough
hemispheres emptied and abandoned.

Still those unthought gestures, rituals
of salvage, leave me scavenging
with ink for what my hand no longer feels.
Reach out again, boy. Scrape the wellhead clean.