Still

The puppeteer prepares for coming night—
he sweeps the floor, hangs tools above the still
unpainted woodland scenery. Pale light
strikes fantoccini spines.

Twilight invades the shop as sunlight flees
through branches where a half-built nest hangs still.
A wooden woodpecker lies by the trees
on the unbending grass.

Three marionettes look on with dread.
Why does the little birdie stay so still?
They linger by the corpse. One says, It’s dead,
I think. The shadows mutter.

A fourth, much larger puppet hangs behind
the little marveling marionettes stock-still.
How did the birdie die? they ask. His mind
is filled with tangled lines:

It was its time. Hanging inert, he gazes
into the empty shell. A minute still
they watch. The sun sprints through its final phases,
forsakes the lifeless mass.

They float back to their half-built home, their life
of painted wood. They think about what still
lies on the lawn, about the ancient knife
that cut its strings, and shudder.

Hiding from the Kids

I’m hiding in my closet eating candy—
the lights are off, so no one knows I’m here.
It has become my modus operandi,
when overwhelmed or tired, to disappear.

I hear them searching for me high and low,
they’re calling out to me—I stay stock-still.
Eventually, they’ll find me, this I know,
because for them, the seeking is a thrill.

My little Psyches yearn to see my face
illuminated by the light of day,
to smother me in kisses and embrace
me tight enough so I can’t fly away.

I love my children more than life itself,
but I just need a minute to myself.

D. A. Cooper is a poet from Texas. His work has also recently appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Dialogue Journal, Light, Lighten Up Online, New Verse Review, The Road Not Taken, and Witcraft, among others. He enjoys translating dialect poetry from Italy, watching The Office, and looking at trees.