Two Poems

by Mikko Harvey

SUGAR WATER

(a pie made by hand) 

(an idea about loneliness) 

(a pattern in the dirt

made by a horse’s steps) 

(the accident that is 

not accidental) 

(the lake waves 

resembling tiny 

melting mountains)

(she asked, what did I 

love more, structures 

or her?) 

(the hummingbird addicted 

to the sugar water 

we feed him) 

(highway 

raccoon carcass 

up-close resembling 

abstract artwork) 

(the particular bitterness 

of oversteeped 

peppermint) 

(what I thought 

was love was just 

a shade of purple paint) 

(a scene from seven years ago 

all covered in moss now) 

(the sky reflected 

in a knife

on a vinyl tablecloth 

at a picnic) 

(a child balancing 

a basketball on her fingertip

then laughing 

as it falls

---

SPARK

A leaf declining 

to fall. A man 

hunting to kill

but not to eat. 

On the patio 

last night,

a telephone 

told stories 

about democracy,

but I was watching 

your hands move. 

Picking up patterns. 

Slowly starting to see 

that my life was nothing 

more than a perch from which

to be kind, like the foliage 

that successfully hides 

a turkey from a hunter. 

The evening’s blackness 

frothed in the grass. 

The evening’s 

mantises danced. 

Or at least swayed.

Or at least existed. 

And when I thought 

that a small amount 

of liquid was about 

to spill over the edge

of your cup, a small 

amount did! 

Simplicity:

a doorknob.

The freckle 

on your forearm.

---

Mikko Harvey is the author of Let the World Have You (House of Anansi, 2022) and Unstable Neighbourhood Rabbit (House of Anansi, 2018). His poems appear in places such as The Kenyon Review, The Poetry Review, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019. He currently lives in Western Massachusetts.