Hesitation
In the L.A. River, islands begin
with single trees, so I lie
in one’s shade to feel
the shadow of beginning.
Under me, roots hold
in their lungs the river,
while my hand rests
on a stone, taking its pulse.
When I stand, my steps
startle ducks, and the order of
shoes enters the order
of wings, enters the
order of sky. Then mallards
return to mind the eggs
they’ve hidden in coyote
brush and blue elder,
and with tattered blue tarps
they mend their nests, threading
the world’s new sleep.
I walk through plastic blues,
dwarf nettle, golden currant,
and hemlock, a lazy saunter
toward translucence, layered
as the haze, maybe. If all
seeing is to be seen back,
I want to see beginning.
I see glinting metal tags
around a dog’s neck,
a shepherd beached
on an otter dam,
his flank rich enough
with blowfly songs to rival
rush hour’s coruscation.
Hunting Season
From woods
where he’d tried
training his black lab
to retrieve ducks
he imagined shooting,
he arrives in a blue,
boxy Ford Bronco.
He wears Lee jeans
and a T-shirt advertising
his flag business, slams
the front screen door,
keeps me quiet
on the couch while
he shouts into the face
of the dog whose fur
the river made shine.
See what I have learned?
He hands me a beer
so cold it softens
the sun, which is setting
behind the lawn chairs,
as if through a day-long rage
it had learned a cold
and forgetting tenderness.
The last of an afternoon
pulls itself on its elbows
through grass the town
can’t afford to cut.
On a flannel couch,
he passes out. TV muted,
two ball players round
the diamond. In the same
silence, a crowd stands,
humiliated by its inability
to roar. I spread
a goose-down comforter
over him. I gaze into
the hollow of his throat.
See what I have learned?
Even in slumber, we imagine
applause on our skin.
Even inside, we are outside.
Or maybe it’s the other way.
We hunt in cut grass,
snouts and tails cloaked
by cathodes. Maybe
we never go anywhere
but rather wait, open-mouthed,
like blue cellar doors,
papered by rust.
Nick Rattner lives in Houston, Texas. Recent work can be found in Columbia Poetry Review, Grist, Puerto del Sol, Asymptote, Exchanges, and InTranslation. With Marta del Pozo, he has translated the work of poets Yván Yauri and Czar Gutiérrez. At present, he is translating the work of Spanish poet Juan Andrés García Román and Mexican writer Salvador Elizondo.