Premonition
by Rachel Sherwood
A pitcher broke sharp in the sink
tonight of all nights, like a tooth
shattering the pleasure of a walnut
with an unwholesome crack
we watch from the curb dull
as lamp posts
when the car shrieks sidewise
in a willful lunge against the street
bark shivers off a pepper tree
and the wheels cover the close night air
languid,
tilted on a wrecked axis.
From Mysteries of Afternoon and Evening
by Rachel Sherwood
(Sherwood Press/Yarmouth Press, 1981).
Poem copyright 1981 by David Trinidad.