Great grandfather, I'm so sorry you
drank boric acid in 1914 and killed
yourself, it must have been a long
and miserable way to say to hell
with life.  A confusing legacy
left to your succeeding kin
who thought maybe your
heart went boop, or
a streetcar called
No Desire wrote
your final
history.

They ask have we turned
the corner away from
hell toward sun
& lofty ideals?

I am no judge
open your
rosebud
eyes &
see.

Brother, this all you need to know about my life --
I live near a river where hawks **** & coyotes
run past with varments in their jaws
to be eaten-- fur, sinew
& bone.

She said I need
to pull your
pants off,

lay still or you'll be sorry,
remember last
time?

Maybe I was
three or four
when I ******

the bed;
the next day
mother was gone,

forever.

They gather under
the steeple, beneath
spire and holy cross,

when I run past on
Sunday mornings
especially when

it's sunny with
leaves budding
I think of lifting

the preacher's wife's
dress to her waist,
her eyes glued

to the sky.

She loved **** early & too often
was her uncle Mike showed
her how doggies do it &

she taught me how
to howl into
the sky

loud enough
to startle
crows

cause them to shiver
from the oaks &

I loved that girl
who left town

a blue Chevy
it was, so
long

ago.

Hair mottled like
an aged mare

she descends
the steps

one withered leg
dangles from

a  purple dress like
a frost nipped

cornflower.

I encircled her waist
with my hands and
lifted her, not as
a trophy, but
to  kiss.

Woman with no
shoes and rag

dress, don't jump from the roof
of your three-story
apartment building,

wait until
it's on
fire.

I am lost again
beyond the hills
where we made love

under the South Dakota
sun in the wide, wide
open as the wheat

lofted toward the bluest
of June skies and we
rolled and rolled

into an indifferent
world forever,
forever.

Hello short darling
I would plow you
like spring earth

but your husband
has only been
dead eight

eight months and I
fear the shiver of
my thighs

would be a cold
cold reminder
of him.

From a straight back wooden chair, I see
a cyan-blue ceramic bowl filled with
tangerines next to a desktop radio
tuned to NPR &

out the kitchen bay window
birds bicker over seeds
overflowing a feeder,
& a raccoon scours
the earth below --

I keep in mind the fact
all of these things will
be absent from my
sight one
day.

Your mediocre dog
does not partake in birthday

parties or attend weddings,
theatrical  events

bar and bat mitzvahs
nor dabble in oil paint,

yet the pooch makes
the most out its twelve

years of life and appears
happy when compared

to the seven billion
humans on earth.

The man sleeping in the diner’s back booth
will not care  if your mother suffers  from
plantar diabetic neuropathy or that your
children read **** and steal *****.  

No,  trivial matters will be of no worry
to him because he ****** himself while
dormant and leaving  without  others
knowing will be of primary concern.

It is five-thirty a.m.
I step outside for
the newspaper,

not four feet away
a raccoon sits on
its haunches like

a paunchy Buddha,
smiling as only liars
and sick animals

can; I toss a half
eaten piece of bacon
between  its  legs, pick

up the paper,
back away,
away.

Entangled in plastic
and  fishing line
eyes pecked by
crows; a new
America.

Atop a fresh
fall of snow

a blood red
cardinal

awaits
spring.

I search for the best lay of the land
between hillsides & beyond
concrete

where gravel roads wander
toward birdsong and gut
laughter with

few  fence posts
and sleep filled
nights.

I know she does not dream of me
nor should she;   there are so
many beautiful things other
than whiskey *****.

There are  fingerprints burned
into these kilns, leather hands
once held  waists of women
with wide hips who gave
birth to children

with gaunt  faces;  now, the bricks
lay across America’s streets
forgotten.

Every morning she awoke
as he fetched cups and bowls

from the cabinet, the sounds
were gentle awakenings, like

sparrows hopping across
a window sill; oh,  so, still

and quiet the home
became.

In every American state
county and town

women walk barefoot
on broken glass

looking for an
open door.

He was a champion boxer
turned alcoholic
who wandered

east and west
on the town’s
railroad tracks

until death;

after his funeral
his wife spent
her days knitting

and thumbing through
newspaper clippings
awaiting her husband’s

return.

She arched, and peeled
a red plum into my
mouth, including
the ragged pit;

though she had the charm
of a pumice stone, I did
not spit or complain.

My classmate Martha walked our school’s
halls for thirteen years, few students

talked to her because she drooled,
walked like a puppet, and had

greasy hair; there are  poems
I can not finish.

She runs from the garden with a tomato worm in her palm
leaving behind a doll, chocolate milk, and banana.

Behind her and thousands of feet above, a green-black
anvil cloud muscles in  from the southwest, close to home;

far from her mind.

Near blind
no longer able

to follow the path
under the bridge

to stream’s edge where
White-tailed deer bow

and drink
pink tongues flick,

eyes
wide.

You will not see me until
four full-moons circle earth

when I burst forth late
May with colors flush

red as *******,
ivory, and blush pink;

it is winter now
and I rest.

These winter days go one by one
and seldom does much happen;

yesterday my cat murdered and ate
a chickadee on the deck and the blood

and snow mixture left a pattern
similar to what a painting of

Vincent Van Gogh’s severed ear
might look like on fresh linen.

I let the killer inside, she licked
her paws--curled on my lap.

is like cotton twine,
if you put a match

to string, it will
burn away,

but if dipped
in beeswax

the flame will be
slow and sure.

Winging on thermals
across river valleys

counting days until
death hones-in;

lead pellets
swallowed,

prey
eaten.

He said his Christmas Eve was good
in his recliner, TV cranked,
drapes closed,

bottle of Nyquil in one hand,
remote control, in the other,

waiting

for NBC News
to end and football
to begin.

Nothing in this alley to crow
about—backboard and bent hoop
leans against an old refrigerator.

Over at   McMillin’s place
bags of garbage pile atop
a turquoise Chrysler.  

I’d give the family a pick
and shovel   if they bury
their old basset after it dies;

it’ll probably keel,
the first cold day
of 2017.  

My boots like this alley
even if my eyes don’t,
it hasn’t seen

a snowplow this winter
and, why should
it?

I am  law
in your life;

you can  jump
high and long,

even  grow
wings, but

there is no
escape,

you will
return.

Basil, paprika, cold Hungarian goulash,
bleu cheese and stale cinnamon
coffee cake dominate
the taste of  your
mouth and skin;

it’s not because you are
slovenly that pulls me
into you, I am alone.

The  babies sleep soft
as flour beneath
our sagging

roof and ice begs
deformed limbs
down

upon electrical lines while
we wait for the blizzard
to hold breath.

Tonight, I pray tomorrow
an orchestra brazenly
plays, and hounds

bay in tune, the sun
melts a path in the snow,
blue morning  stars glow;

all, so I can find my
sad and lonely
way.

No sound for hours,
looked under the sofa
behind two woodstoves,
beneath the sink where only
mama goes; finally, in the cellar
covered in a week of ***** clothes,
                                    
                   ­                         kitty, Bella.

Your hair falls
on my chest,

I call you
cowgirl,

you say giddy-
up horse,

hips
click.

Red bud, je m'agenouille devant vous,
votre  départ  jusqu'à ce
que les plis s'épanouir.

When all summed her home was
immaculate,  like pearl polished
porcelain and her maple floors
smelled of good soap and wax;
between Sunday lunch  and
dessert, she would stroll
to the bathroom
to throw-up.

There are plenty of diseases around, take
an American motel room, shine an
ultraviolet on wall switches,
pillows, see seminal fluid
& mucus splotched like
a Jackson *******,
these are seen,

now,  flick a light & open your eyes
& recognize the overt sickness of
racism, spread  like jam
across American
bread, widely
viewed,
unseen.

Mothers are drowning their
children and piercing
hearts with nails
because they
fear ISIS

and Jordanian
military will
eventually
slaughter
them like

goats.

I remember as you stood bare feet
tiptoes on the red linoleum

reaching up to pull
the shade at dusk;

I left before the sun rose
you slept weeks

before realizing
there was no return.

I learned of life’s fragility
as I left home for

fourth-grade class
one May morning

to find boots with
a body attached

under our tall
juniper
tree.

He followed the buck past
the wormwood barn

down the game trail
into and out of

three hundred yards
of multiflora rose

(so thick his jeans
raveled like terrycloth)

to shoot and leave for
dead, walked away.

Food for thought, the school
is torn down, McDonald’s
took its

place, and the old man
living in the corner
house

masturbated on his  front
porch until the police
stopped him

is decades dead, I don’t
remember his name

but the poor as horse meat
children who attended
class with me

I see like clean
glass.

She dug ***** after
***** of soil until
the hole was

long, and deep enough
to cover Brownie’s tan
and white speckled
body;

I was twelve years
old, and Beverly
fourteen.

Sometimes I smell your hair
and pretend to lay my
chest against you

like on those nights after
building  a pine  fence
around the yard

of  a Baptist preacher’s
house in Georgia
forty miles

from cold beer and café pie,
and then I remember that
was 20 years ago

before you and me
drove different
highways.