Birdie Jaworski

My Tablature

A and B and key of C,
never harsh minor keys
or the adventures
of a new alphabet.
A scrawny brown
circle of dog
with nose tucked
into tail begs
at my feet.
Ribs show through
sparse fur;
part of one
ear is missing.
He wears no collar.
I wear no might.
I wrap pieces
of Mom's death
in hope chest scented tissue,
try to floss stray bits
from my molars,
but my loss is a hitchhiker,
a girl of eighteen
with a bulging pregnant belly.
We ride in silence.
She holds her hair in her right hand,
rested against growing baby,
long and straight and black and oily.


any saturday morning, 10th year

A water moccasin disturbs
a lake of black glass.
My dad casts baited line;
shoulders back, trunk swivels,
cuts fog in samurai surrender.
Red bobber falls flat,
spreads concentric messages.
Does the hooked worm know?
I hold a dented bucket in wait.


Timeloop Key

The old '50s Carrizo Impact Area.
Damn. The Carrizo Impact Area.
It tempts me each time I drag
sorry ass up elephant knee mesas.
The army says Don't Cross Carrizo
Impact Area. The signs say Don't
Cross Carrizo Impact Area. My mind
says Don't Stop. Cross it! Who
cares about mines and dodgy bullets
and a stray hydrogen bomb perhaps
lost under mesquite ghost stumps.
The army stuffed planes with
megaton testosterone swag,
let it flash flood dry washes
with enemy voodoo pin pricks.
They thought no one would see
dive bomb hawks chasing popping
shells, colors of aurora borealis
two thousand miles off course.
I keep old casings I find
outside the perimeter
in a wooden cigar box.
Sometimes I empty them
on my desk, let them roll
to the parquet, chain of clinks,
chain of remembered custody,
chained dead human stupidity.
I tell you, I'm gonna cross
the line next time. I will
toss my Panama sunhat across
that invisible barrier, follow
with legs ready to run like hell.


Invisible

Designing magnets might sound complicated,
but it’s a simple art.
First you collect the experimental specifications.
Scientists want their magnetic fieldsto act certain ways.

Sometimes they need a steep field profile,
one that hits ions with brute Gaussian force.

Sometimes they need something more subtle,
a gentle rise of magnetic power
that coaxes particles in desired directions.

You start by estimating
what your magnet might look like,
taking into consideration
the specifications desired
and your past experience
with similar specifications.
Specifications are the shit.

You feed the parameters of your design
into a computer program
that calculates a field map,
and out spits a topographical chart
showing the magnetic field
at any point near your magnet.

You make adjustments and do it again,
and again,and again,finally reaching something
that approximates the desired outcome,
but never quite matches it.


Escarpment

Telescope lens
focuses on wicker chair
dead center dead
in water field.

I stand wide aperture
eye on eyepiece,
hands dial clarity,
ass bends twine.

Ankle, shin,
patella skim algae,
sink hole echo,
quicksand covers neck.

I twist rusted controls,
watch bottom lip fall.
My hair cracks surface,
negative garden.