Wednesday Poem

The Yin and Yang of It

For every peony, fifty ants.
For every waxing hive, a bear.

For each blossom the broodfouled
bee sticky with fungus, bumbling.

For every gut, a bot. For your beating
heart, the surgeon’s stent.

A brass knuckle on each finger,
in every nose a brass ring.

Dust in both your blue
irises, planed from a stubborn plank.

For each stump an ax, and for every ax
handle, a falling tree no one hears

before it rolls like a thoroughbred
over the jockey—

for every anxious hero sniffs
the plumed riderless horse

that will carry his empty boots
backwards in the stirrups.

by Joyce Peseroff

from Breakwater Review, 2009