Dear Rutherford, the subways are afluster
   with the fuss of the elite. Highways teem
with Heathers in Mercedes, Audis, BMWs: überspoils teams
        of heathen engineers breakfast over.

   I can’t bear to overlook her, o my mall. Rutherford,
Prussia is the great sky bear akimbo musing
        on some museum culture bird-holed. Rutherford,
     these SUVs defame the groggy and their bird-

dogging SAPSOLCAS, infamous as Christmas
(Santa As Patron Saint Of Lame Children And Smiths).
        Gather in your child-like cosmic wrongness
     heatherbane for the likeable. Classically

this is known as panfrying catgut. Because to talk class,
     Rutherford, invites cats to the oil pan
of adequate health. Because broken winter, Rutherford,
  arrives, brakes fast, breaks down. We have only one

unbroken thing here: Heather. And she only by name.
        By spring, Rutherford, Explorers, Expeditions,
   and Excursions on the vascular asphalt of our tanned druidness,
and nothing doing. Ach Du, o Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum:

Du bist ein edler Zweig, where Zweig refers to path—
      o SAPSOLCAS, balm to my pining—sap path
found for an unJapanesed Heather. Me.
                                               I close, dear Rutherford,
   with my wish list: I wish your right eye close on this period.

Chad Davidson's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in DoubleTake, Notre Dame Review, The Paris Review, Pequod, Seneca Review, and others. His first collection of poems, Consolation Miracle, will be published in fall 2003 with Southern Illinois University Press. More in CONTRIBUTORS