Poems by Kathleen Hellen

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Cricket

by Kathleen Hellen

From Canary Summer 2013

Kathleen lives in the Jones Falls Watershed where sewage has spilled into its tributaries for decades. The Watershed comprises 58 square miles of urban and suburban Baltimore.

A stealthy dark and quiet
the basement is its own assassin’s night

but for the rumble—
the sump pump rains have wildly flushed
and this

darling pest, his
boisterous vibrations
Cricket in a paddy
in the northeast of the city

digging tunnels
when suddenly he quits
as if danger to the washer could be heard
in the shuffling of my slippers to the load

Danger to the hammers and the mower
Danger to the reign of the blower

Silence studies distance
Silence studies wherewithal and waits




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