we have a thing
about law & order,
we’ve all seen moonlight on lakes
& crows whittled from a block
of air. In this animal-night, no
siree, we won’t disappoint you
when we rise out of hawkweed.
Punchdrunk
So what if he walks into red
North Carolina traffic at night
like Jarrell, dreaming hollyhock,
blowing some horn of bone?
Hellbent for green dark
because a man’s mind runs
away from him like a wild horse.
The second thought of a wood thrush,
wings waxed to August sky. Deep relic
truths & strange tales. Once he
went ringing doorbells, singing
Sticks & stones may break my bones, but. …
If he knows nothing else, he knows
how to take a solid, left, black jab,
how to force a big man to kiss the canvas,
a life stronger than fossil & boxwood.
Vigilante
Each hired hand places
a dusty boot in a stirrup,
swings himself into a sweat-burnt
saddle, hoping to handle
a noose. The boss’s moneysack
& Willie D. Jones gone.
Far as the eye can see
a sparrow, conifers jut toward
enamel sky. Snagged cloth
leads a trail into hackberry.
Near the northridge
he crossed the river into
another country of nights.
A human form scuffles knee-deep
in this year’s first snow,
bobbing on the sights of five guns.
Nothing to Do with Janice Drake
Mister Humbug
returns. She runs
to him, wailing his name
as if her clothes were on fire.
Then she sweeps
this killer’s tracks
clean, removing fingerprints
from the murder weapon.
He looks at her
& says, “Let that dress fall, Sweetie.
Don’t tell me
dogwoods grow crooked
because of Jesus.”
He grins
like a new case-knife.
Then stands at the bedroom
window, & says:
“Don’t you know
one of these days
you gonna make me
blow your brains out?”
Reconstructing a Crime
The back door opened
quiet as a coffin lid.
From the yard a Douglas fir
stared over his shoulder
like some god.
He was shoeless,
a man tiptoeing upon a dream.
From the right angle, the way
the moon now falls through damask curtains,
if anything, you’d only seen
the gun.
Outside their bedroom door
he could hear blossoms
of flesh. He slammed it open
& then huge white spaces
fell.
Come over here & lie down
within these chalked contours.
Okay. From this position,
the point of entry
was a gate …
the two lovers,
the way their legs were tangled,
he was still inside her.
Two
The dumb aura
deserts its guts
inside the queen
bee. The drone’s genitals
tear out like a blind eye
extricated in each honeyegg.
Sexual cadenza
of the praying mantis—
after her acrimonious mate
has been forced to eat
the song of his presence
his head is gnawed off
like a half-green
rosebud
