Overkill

Mother’s cooked up way too much.

She doesn’t just make duck, but makes

pintail ducks, wood ducks, ruddy ducks, eider ducks, fulvis tree ducks, widgeons,

cinnamon teals, red breasted mergansers,

and on and on, a redundancy of duck.

Still she pushes the plate toward us.

Fescue fingers up the sidewalks.

Chickweed loiter at the curb.

Trumpet vine clasps the gate shut.

Profligate snails dance through their 17 hours of foreplay,

leaving trails all over.

Cottony packets stuffed with baby spiders

hang in the back of our closets until

we carry them out at arm’s length.

Bagworms wrap the redbuds and gorge

until we split them open.

There’s no end to her excess.

Dandelion blow sticks to the sappy trunk of the white pine.

Millions of sperm bulge in teenaged boys.

And babies drop into dumpsters at dances.