JOHN ALLMAN

Reading Andrew Marvell

Forget parallel lines that never meet
when every surface is flat. Recall the
summer our daughter learned to swim
at Lake Dutchess, dogpaddling to the float.
I cut our first lawn while tottering on the
riding mower, going round and round.
Paradise like that. Repetitive. Look at
the perfectly tapered wren fly up into the live

oak tangled in Spanish moss and listen to its
small song. It rains and we go inside, towel
off, we make love, something sputtering to life,
that noise like a wheel wobbling on the mower
I steered up and down the yard I had just
scythed clear of wild carrot, wild mustard.
Here the souls of things struggle into their sheaths,
grow tinsel wings, flutter upward to sit and stare,

the lagoon’s shimmer in apposition to the stars.