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ARTS
AND SCIENCES
Pete Lee
700,000,000,000
x186,000
x60x60x24x365
=how many
miles away
the farthest
thing we've
ever found
is from us,
it's said -- but
do they go
by miles on
that end?
maybe it's half
a squark or
two scrunches
to them -- like the
drive between
hollywood and
west hollywood --
or as far as the
nearest cine-
plex, where
math can't
move the pop-
corn, only the
stars can.
CLAWS
Pete Lee
The light's gone weird
at midday, in midsummer:
those green pomegranates
might have been painted
on the branch that bends
to set down the wine-
red ones, concerned mother
captured in stop-action;
a single leaf scuttles
across the grass, yellow
crab on a green beach;
an elm has shot straight up
from the ground and burst
into a display of leaves...
Autumn must be calling:
long-distance to be sure
but as sure as gravity,
will brown and bring down
to a gone-brown beach
a murder of crabs fleeing
the wind, seeking safety
in each other's claws.
CLOSET
Pete Lee
Summer clothes
toward the left,
winter clothes
toward the right:
the hanger heads
are tick marks
on a graph.
Autumn appears
uneventful.
We shall sweat
or freeze.
LORD OF THE NUTS
Pete Lee
To observe nature is to
learn about humankind,
and vice versa: I feed
the local chickadees
peanuts from my hand
on the porch of the cabin
and incite a near-riot,
igniting a cacophony
of bickering in an over-
hanging pine branch. One
by one, they make
the brief pilgrimage
to perch on my finger,
pluck a nut, then fly.
Then one unusually
large chickadee appears
in my palm, straddling
the little pile, a peanut
already in its beak:
chirps, drops the nut,
picks it back up, chirps
again, drops it again,
picks it back up...and
carries on this way
until the rest concede
that it's Lord of the Nuts.
But I adore this one also,
too much to move my hand.
PROCESSING THE MAIL
Pete Lee
The joker from
Tecopa answers
the race question,
"Other: Human"
and I laugh
days later,
inputting his
application,
wondering who this
joker thinks he is
as I hit 6
for "Race Unknown."
Pete Lee lives with his wife
in Ridgecrest, California, where he works as an independent
bookseller. His poetry has most recently appeared in the online journals Antithesis Common, The 13th Warrior Review,
Alba, The Country Mouse, Shampoo, and The Rose & Thorn.
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