Fig Poem #2

midnight and I'm building a bread box for my wife

I can hear our neighbor shooting

bbs from his window at the priests

who creep into his yard to swipe the figs

from his fig tree


brushing the ants off the figs

from our neighbor’s fig tree

eating figs

the way the fingers of the dog

trace the secret light from the worm moon

falling around the yellow shadow of the willow tree

why don’t you have another fig

they’re soft and sweet

then we’ll go to bed

French Poem 4,747

I have studied you for 4,747 nights and still
I do not really understand you.
I can say I adore your brown eyes
I can say I love to watch you brush your hair every night
I can say I eat ice cream and work with a computer in an office building
I can say playing sports every day is important
The cat is in the tree in the night
The big white church is on the right side of this street
The coffee and ham are on the table
I can look at your face every night in the street
I can look into your face 
like I am some hungry but very nice dog

The Chirping Frogs

In the winter, the small girl has small arms

I wonder, in the swirling bed of rumbling
purple flowers, if I’m still allergic to horse blankets,

I wonder if it’s true that even now, we’re headed west

it’s true James Buchanan wished to his doctor to become a frog, there’s more to it, but

I have to go now

the washing machine is singing





Mike Andrelczyk is the author of five collections of poetry including “Tennis Leg” and “!!!”. His first novel “Submarines” is slated for publication with Malarkey in the summer.

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