Still Life: Pear (Windfall) (Artist Flickr)
Photograph courtesy of Creative Commons
Windfall pears sleep like rocks
at the base of a tree.
The baseboard needs sealing
before the next heavy rain heaves
a garden snake into the kitchen.
So unlikely, a small body
glistening next to the cut
tennis balls fitted over chair feet.
Its skin liquid and textureless
as the tadpole we caught from the pond
and kept in a tank in the living room
for two years, where it never became a frog.
After, we poured the water and its body
into the backyard. The living loom
over the other living. In the dream
where I flew, I plucked helicopters
by their rudders like lifting a mug
from the cupboard. In real life, I catch
a tadpole by the tail. The attic trap snaps
behind the thin bloom of a squirrel. I do not have
the words to keep everything alive. My mother
stands over the snake and raises her arms.