(A Sestina in Seven Parts)
………………………….I.
This infected world has released bats
from its belfry, multiplying ten-fold:
China, Italy, Spain, and now us. Shoot!
Make the proverbial sign of the cross
six feet apart in the village square.
Mine shafts are full of dead canaries.
………………………….II.
In its battered cage, a timid canary
tries to hide as the tireless cat bats
a captured feather around the square
of carpet it has humped into folds.
It executes another leap, crosses
the space; ball to hoop, itself it shoots.
………………………….III.
False spring has coaxed pale shoots
from the warming soil, canary
yellow in their newness, but cross
and cold, it chills little brown bats
that wake too soon, delicate folds
of wing doubled over, death squared.
…………………………..IV.
Boy Scouts used to pledge, Be square,
but the Liar in Chief fires or shoots
down brave sheep that leave his fold.
Contradict him to sing like a canary,
and Cohen goes from first base to bat
boy, testimony called a double cross.
……………………………V.
A gambler signs his life away with cross
on dotted line, then throws the square
of paper into oblivion and sees it bat-
flap toward his ruination and shoot
to an unmarked account in the Canary
Islands. Que sera sera; another loser folds.
……………………………VI.
It’s her last love note, and along the fold
she has written the cryptic, Cross
your heart and hope…So, drink canary
wine, sweet and light as a square
of white chocolate. Go the whole shoot.
Covid positive, it’s your turn up at bat.
……………………………VII.
Hope for a time with canaries safe in the fold,
no more rabid bats circling a broken cross,
meals always square, and guns that don’t shoot.
Joan Wiese Johannes has been widely published in journals and anthologies, published four chapbooks, and won contests sponsored by The Alabama Poetry Society, The Mississippi Valley Poetry Society, and Wisconsin Fellowship of poets. She co-edited the 2012 Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar and the 2019 Winter issue of Bramble with her husband Jeffrey.
Portage Magazine 