The grackles plummet down to pierce the lawn
For seeds and fat brown live oak acorns and
Ignore the orange plastic watering cans
My daughters drop in the cold grass, my daughters
Saying, Goodnight grass, as if the blades they’d watered
By hand were their daughters, as if the grass
Were a feeling they’d been feeling, greenly
Reckoning the evening, the ball moss falling from the trees,
The sun circling the crouched shade of the weeping
Persimmon tree as mildly as the knife rounds
The persimmon I bring inside so I can say
Of the pierced skin, Look, this is the color we
Want sunset to be, the color of the plastic
Watering cans shocking the dark that falls
Over the suggestions of footprints in the grass,
The black grackles, and the acorns battering
Our metal roof while I feed my ravenous daughters
A soft dinner that they clutch with grubby hands and gnaw.