The Wooden Trap

　　by Kevin Cantwell

　　 The held cry of a hawk makes Thomas Hardy think

　　 to make her believe it's a newborn's cry she hears.

　　 Milk wets through her blouse. The other women know

　　 at once. That's chapter one. How it starts

　　 to grow while above his head the cumuli

　　 accumulate. The August fields waver beyond

　　 the privet hedge. He's given up the novel

　　 for poetry. The women look at each other.

　　 One counts out change on a plank counter.

　　 That's that she says. Then exposition's drift

　　 to flashback： How a horseshoe loosens；

　　 how when leading the horse the master returns.

　　 Not angry， only to get it done right.

　　 How she presses under the eaves of the shed

　　 with him while the afternoon rain comes down

　　 so hard they are nearly soaked anyway.

　　 The editorial omniscient bites his tongue.

　　 Innocent as it goes. The scent of windfall

　　 rises up through the apple tree from the ground.

　　 Some of the leaves bronze even now. There's no

　　 turning back but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

　　 There's Hardy. Shoes a disgrace. Canvas gaiters

　　 undone and one foot on top of the ladder

　　 where it narrows at the highest rung， the worn wood

　　 twice the width of a stirrup， and one foot

　　 in the crotch of a limb. He has it all

　　 worked out. She's in another country where rumor's made

　　 a place for her. Where's the little one？

　　 they ask， but she presses past them into the lane，

　　 It serves her right but no one says it

　　 so that she hears. A limb tumbles through the green

　　 cloud of foliage. And then another. He cuts it back

　　 to make it bear， though a neighbor's stopped to tell him

　　 it's ill-advised so late in the season.

　　 She finds a place for herself as a domestic

　　 until the governor says a girl's come back.

　　 They'll have to let her go. It's dusk. The clouds

　　 go pink to shell. He folds the little saw.

　　 The ladder widens to its base， A trick of perspective

　　 also that lures the gopher into the wooden box

　　 he's set in its tunnel， the hole which looks

　　 like an exit， the end of the tunnel， daylight，

　　 but smaller than its head and those footsteps

　　 on the earth above， which pause and anticipate

　　 her every turn， and block her escape

　　 with a garden fork plunged into the lyric dark.