In Search of the Duende; Also known as Gnomes

whom I have been having trouble finding,
I press my ear against walls
listen for scurrying.
I drift into sleep beside a neat offering
of toe nail clippings (his favorite).
No, he never comes.

When I wake I remember something
to do with spoons as a metaphor.
How am I a spoon!
This does not help me discover.


Occurencias: well I can’t speak for bright or witty
but most ideas are sudden and overwhelming.
These are the parts I have chosen to keep
from what my mother chose to keep.
An earthiness, a giving of sense
to the senseless. We begin a game of phone tag.

I have always preferred roots that arch from the ground
like the tell-tale toes of a murder victim—
the moment at which the gears give way.

And like of my grandmother and her plastic beauties.
Caridad del Cobre with your drifting sailors,
this is not so different a veneration.
A spineshiver that, unspoken for, still insists.