Jesse said the source of thunder
is the oyster in the clouds.
He told us, the baby sheep
we ate for dinner died
standing in its field & it knew it was its time.
Once he was a puppy who had fallen from the sky.
He was looking for a new home. The people
he had lived with before would feed him only
candy & eggs.
My mind speaks in prose.
Memos, grant proposals, what’s for dinner.
I am not free. Though freer than most.
Today the gray April rain holds me fast–
not loose, my mind tight as a board clamped
and waiting for the glue to dry.
When my father was dying, his brain invaded
by a growth the size of an egg (but not smooth–
rather, lumpy and tentacled, reaching for his mind’s
far regions), he told us: the air today is generous.
If I had a balloon I would not be afraid.
I’d like to swim out and have a beer.
Accidental Poetry
Laura Buxbaum is a re-emerging poet at 65. She has spent a long time working in non-profits writing mostly memos, emails, and grant proposals – the last poems she published were in her college literary magazine. She lives in Maine where, in addition to her job, she raises goats and grows a garden, runs, hikes, skis, sings, and plays the cello.