The Placeholder, poem by Carol Alexander

Old man in a caravan

grease-stained coverall

retired lo lo nine point

three years now.

 

On the shortest day

of the year

shimmed down

to a decimal

electric fires spark,

smolder,

the trailer fills

with creosote smoke;

a bird's nest ignites

into a crown of thorns.

 

The whipped cur of oily dawn

slinks around this trailer park

as Orion disappears into white,

girding his rusty belt.

The gunning of a motor,

the shriek of a shivering girl

five point two bared,

legs shimmying

as the finned leviathan

inches toward the marsh,

creeping….

 

On the flaccid wire

rides the blackbird,

the decimal of its eye

unseen

except by the coonhound

pissing its load

against the trailer

so laboriously,

the way it happens

with old dogs.

 

But the blackbird,

having naught to do

with any of this,

subtracts itself

from the wire.

 

The cloacal marsh,

rimmed with tires

rusted parts

reechy weeds

gallantly

cleanses itself

of rot and reek.

 

Woman gone,

girl blind

son in the field,

wired and mined:

zero to do

with any of this.

 

The old man

on the shortest day

of the year

cleans his gun–

but it's not

what you think,

he's miles to go–

 

whistles up the hound

shivers and slips

on slivers of ice

but rights himself

 

and it's off

into the marsh

to shoot something

lovely.

 

The frogs under ice

don't mutter a croak.

 

There's a stubborn persistence

in flesh and fowl:

why some don't leave

but linger

in the blast of wind

the frozen shallows

the absence of

berry or worm.

 

Placeholders,

like us.

 

One of them today

will meet

its natural enemy.

A good old fellow

for all of that.

 

Teasels grow around

the marsh.

Lone blackbird

unheralded,

the hissing of dried grass

unheralded,

the veins

in his gnarled muscles

burled, lathed,

flesh subtracted–

 

first two blackbirds,

now, none.

 

Carol Alexander is a New York City-based author and editor. A writer for trade and educational publishing, she has authored numerous children's books, served as a ghostwriter for radio and trade publishing, and taught at colleges around the metropolitan area. In 2011–2012, her poetry appears in literary journals and anthologies published by Chiron Review, Cave Moon Press, The Canary, Danse Macabre, Earthspeak ,Fade Poetry Journal, Fat Daddy's Farm Press, Mobius, Numinous, OVS, Red Poppy Review, and The Whistling Fire.