Clark Chatlain

A BEAUTIFUL RUSE

In a slender thicket of the city’s
red park
I heard a flicker,
now quiet as he looks for ants
in the dead leaves.
There’s a good light among these
leggy spiders and shale.
Last night M. balanced the white moon
on the rim of her glass,
dark with wine.
A trick mainly women know.
She looks for ants, too, to find
the flicker.
We listen together,
heads cocked,
for little legs in the leaves
in the false dark and moonless.

Clark Chatlain lives and works in Missoula, Montana. He has published poems, most recently in Prairie Poetry, and books reviews and is currently a contributing editor for Cutoff Mountain.