This morning little mushroom heads,
like rusted dimes on toothpick stalks,
sprang up in our flower box.
An hour later they were dead,

withered in the summer heat.
Each spore stretched out its mortal coil
through dried-up peat and city soil
to die upon a slab of concrete.

With mouthless moths and butterflies,
the male flies free, no need for food,
and mates to spawn a hungry brood
then lives another hour and dies,

unable even to watch its spawn
chew my tomatoes to the ground.
If they had mouths their song would sound
pointless, pointless over the lawn.

Inside, my daughter's forced to practice.
Her fingers blunder down the keys,
ignoring accidentals. She's
thirteen, more prickly than a cactus.

Outside the yard is newly mown—
I hear the chirps of brazen birds,
wrong notes accented by swear words,
and realize lately how she's grown

almost as moody as my ex-wife.
A year ago she loved to play.
She hates it now and pounds away
a stubborn song of loss and life.