Kara Arguello

Pattern

Return to the back porch
with skeins and hook, curl
into the wicker loveseat. I am here again,
as I was last weekend,
and will be again tomorrow, trying
to crochet a grey and white blanket.
27 different patterned blocks.
 
The neighbors' thud, thudding music
skewers my brain.  Try to focus
on the soft drill of the carpenter bees
slowly eating the pergola.
I am terrible at this.
 
The doves are back again this year,
grey and white, have built another shelter
in the eave above the sliding doors.  They wake me
every Saturday morning with their incessant calls.
They've lined their nest with the downy clippings
from our backyard pandemic haircuts.
As if by changing one ingredient
in the recipe, they can change the outcome.  As if
some additional padding will stop
the Cooper's hawk, negate the bony hatchling
thudding to the porch.
 
The neighbors' music, bird bones
on the porch.  Crochet and rip out,
crochet and rip out.

Kara Arguello lives in San Jose, California. Recent publications include DMQ Review, Lakeshore Review, and Big City Lit. Poems have previously appeared in Cream City Review, Across the Margin, Lindenwood Review, Red Wheelbarrow, The Fourth River, Sugar House Review, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.