Poetry by Joe Cottonwood

              ​Paul Sableman CC



​
​If I see one more fucking Zen poem

I will scream.
Enough with the footprints in moss, 
the happy crickets.

I’m repairing a burst water pipe
next to a Buddha statue on a McMansion lawn
in a soppy hole I’ve dug  
as twilight darkens
while the client frets at my hourly expense,
tells me my fee is “unconscionable,”
he a psychoanalyst whose fee, no doubt, 
has conscience.

The rising moon is my lover’s breast
with shadowy crater her nipple,
those night clouds her fragrance,
the winking jet my desire,
the meteor my sperm.
Strangely happy in my anger
I speak none of this.
 




​The more he calls her a liar

the more we believe he is the one
because that’s how liars work
while she responds softly but firmly
at the side of the road.
I pass walking my poodle 
who is gigantic fuzzy black.
It would be none of my business
but they have a daughter 
her face inscrutably blank. 
She clutches a fuzzy black bear.

In this pandemic they argue unmasked.
I pass masked a safe distance.
My poodle unmasked wants 
to greet bear and daughter both.
I never stick my hand into a dog fight
but the poor girl is my business
is everybody’s business
so I stop and watch from across the street
until he sees me and says This is private.
I say Then make it private.

They go.
The little girl follows with bear at her chest.
The poodle whines.
We grownups are so stupid.

Joe Cottonwood has built or repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest book is Random Saints.

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