Landis Everson

A tree that grew in the Garden of Eden
a tree of innocence called
the Tree of Good and Evil. It was harmless

as opposites are in balance. It was also
tasteless,
the taste of innocence before it is betrayed.
When God removed the wall

he gave the lemon thorns and bitterness because it had

Almost
the first reindeer
shipped North by boxcar from Lapland
but a toy model
got there first.

A dwarf invented reindeer on his own.
He was Santa’s favorite. He
hadn't known

Put nothing down to distress the reader.
No barking dog.
No rustle in the place whispers belong
or photos of petals near collapse.
Erase oranges of confusing taste, a face
wrinkled or in pain,
a map with waterless rivers or water
without a bend,

How did the valentines age so fast?
Most of the names are forgotten.
Billy, Billy, Billy, Jill
I think strangers sent them out like advertising
hoping I'd surrender. But

Jill, Jill, Jill and Billy Bill,
shared memories aren't easily kept.
Secrets wash out of the ocean blank all over.
I am sitting on a beach chair
somewhere in the middle of the century, pretending

I remember a garden of broken banjos and
butterflies,
old movies. Valentines from Valentino,

Valentine, valentine you arrive
in a town car with a chauffered envelope,
scattered pieces of you enrolled in schoolyards
like a recess of paper vanity, litter, old
with red-rimmed "loves," red-rhymed lies in lace.

The verses come, rising as easily as long-stemmed snakes in
bloom where swamps settle down and drowse
by dawn, a night of secrets slid out of drawers like knives nesting, a choice of chimes and slums overrun
by bejeweled heartbreakers. What a lovely
winter, almost skipping February.

"What you are struggling with," said
the psychologist, "is
a continuous song, something like
a telephone's tone. Nebulous, noncommittal,
unrelenting, pretending
to give you messages it can't deliver.

Because the body is unattached. It is,"
he said, "like a valentine sent
out cold, beautiful, brittle as tomorrow's
deja-vu, but distortedly misaddressed.
These pills will help you
find yourself
somewhere where the lace ends up loose
and the paste is still humming

Defend me. I am not capable.
The river sweeps by three minutes at once
cleansing me of guilt. But the bear
crashes through it and breaches my
innocence.
He rages and frightens my innocence.

The psychologist says, "You are the bear.
You are the river.
You are the green car
crossing the bridge. Defend yourself."

But the green car
is in a forest I have failed to speak to.
The green car was never intended

Now it's time to play. Nobody says,
like they used to, but in my bones
the desire overwhelms me. "Write!
Make a poem," say the bones.

The inlet will come first. It always does.
Water calls urgently, "egret." The waterbird
that moves elastically over the surface
making everything focus soon or late.

Now my hand enters. It always does.
It gives the bones reason to observe.
It makes the egret the finest thing in sight
and the water intelligent north of here.