2 by Matthew Woodman

Without Monsters

Whose hunger
would flay nights
stem hearts

Whose need
would peel frames
rend sheets

Whose drive
would blacken eyes
cancel children

Whose voice
would we fail to recognize
on our answering machines
as it tells the caller

we’re not home


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Swarm Theory

Every home
is a spilled bushel
of thieves
and half-eaten apples.

Family becomes food:
turkey in fall,
pork in spring. 

                       How is it
that we have come so far
without colliding? 

A sky awash with molars,
a house ground down
to the vestigial
root cellar
and jar of preserves.