-how the night will purr-

tonight i am the center of debate
among the council of night dogs

at issue is the stone floor upon which
my boot laid pace is uneasy

i enter a plea of vodka and kick
a beetle into a truck tire

arguments run as far into the night
as the stitched wing of a cricket

when recess is finally called i run
upstairs to make love to my wife

but the baby is awake and the cat
is tongue-out dead on my pillow

-night drive-

everything i said to you was brilliant.  so much that i could feel your silence listing my way through each perfectly missed turn.  something like faith, my hand on the wheel.  you fully allowing me the light of the moon.  most times the moon open to my theories as the road full of cliché; the blink of your face at the turn of my eye, the struggle for somewhere so true of nowhere.  there were times i said nothing, as though not to alarm a farmer on watch for his harvest of locust.  those residual moments when the radio stirred in its sleep.  the wind missing chances to break free with your hair.  in them i realized so sweeping your belief in disbelief.  likewise, the ghost of that farmer leading with torches its horses crossing the road on crutches.  i suppose everything i said proved immeasurable the distance between driver and rearview, voice and throat.  though i still felt lost and strangely alone as your shadow so easily dodged the passing signs.  they all said: left to guess, passably right.

-burning old love letters-

boy and his daily pail of ash
clanking about the white tones of
an old morning

stops to climb the oak outside her
bedroom, the handle of the pail
between his teeth

until he reaches the nest of
a starling, collects the five eggs
grey in his palm

and scoots his way toward the end of
a branch, letting the pail drop with
his halting smile.

boy and his handful of starlings,
tossing them one by one through her
open window

and waiting for her not to come,
and giving the branch a hug, and
done with his pail.

-a curious couple-

we come upon the end
of a rowboat
collared in sand

hull deep lies
a boy missing
mostly his wrists

the peak of your shadow
dips into the pale trough
of his thigh

smellin' that salt makes
my nose bleed snakes all day
he creaks and then
spits a tooth

see my wiggly little blood?

you whirl at me primed
with a scream that will
surely loose the devil

i give you my hand and opt
my love however so deep
as your bite

the boy stares and threads
his blood
through an oarlock

-hell, just guessing-

keep dry the field where your voice grows
hanging

by the roots of a tree
risen into the clutches of heaven
nearby

a man, quietly, missing

-artifice-

darting shadow of your tongue,

could it coerce a cat
to slip into halves

the lump in my throat?

-disburdened-

if asked
to describe what happened
i could merely
push you
into a notch
on my ashtray

admit only the drag

my knuckles
across the soft parts
of my face

-a dead catfish-

my daughter had found a dead catfish.

her brother had urgently surrendered the remains
of his sandwich to staying balanced atop the most
difficult rock.

they were taking turns clubbing the inflated
carcass with sticks that were just as waterlogged.

i was thinking about how noble it would be if i
could apprise the turtle trying to eat the belly

  there's still sandwich.

-one innocent-

seems i've already
written the preface
to your story
about watching the
angels fly after
my body as
it scattered from
heaven into the
starving bellies of
distant enough wolves


three nights ahead
i was dreaming
of you kissing
me just softly
between my eyes

and of children
chasing a lamb
around the silence
of a grave