WANDS

When I was young
and had the power to put
power in my hands,
I built magic wands out of Legos.
I used the square blocks (four pegs)
and used only two colors,
alternating,
until all those pieces were in
the wand.

Yellow and black in a small
stack is the bee’s flag.
Fear and the sting, fire
and the ash. The letters
on plastic police tape.
Its colors came in
and mixed a drink
of power and remains.

Blue and white is the wand
of snow and ice, solitude
in the easy, empty world.
I turned it over and over
as if you’d find a tooth
frozen inside. The air
it turned it was soft
and patient.

Red and blue moved
against my eyes
like the colors
wanted to leap
off the blocks and melt
into violet light.
Boy and blood, water
and lava. Cardinal
and Jay—the ones
that hopped
on my grandma’s lawn.
This is the one I carried
most of the time.
I melted down its power
only for the building
of enormous,
temporary machines.

ERIC DUTTON