Brenda Hillman, American poet, born 1951, is the author of ten poetry collections.
SPECIES PREPARE TO EXIT AFTER MONEY
Brenda Hillman
Turns out bacteria communicate in color.
They warn each other in teal
or celadon & humans assign
meaning to this, saying they are distressed
or full of longing. The wood rat
makes a nest of H’s; it hoards
the seven tiny silences. Crows in the pine
can count specific faces like writers
who feel their art has been ignored.
My father spent his life thinking
about money though he knew
it causes most of this stupid violence,
& he thought of me as a sensible person;
you have the chemical for sensible, he said.
There was no tragedy between us,
unlike how poor Joyce wrote
that his daughter turned away
from that battered cabman’s face, the world.
i didn’t turn away because i don’t know
where it is, it is all over, & when it seems
pure nothingness has come to pass,
i know another animal prepares itself
nationless, not sensible;
thinking of it helps a little bit—