An overall’d uncle stabbed over homemade champagne drifts around the bend.
A commemoration quilt and the Adamsville population shifts around the bend.

There’s an old hymn torn out of Martha’s hymnal, an elegy, a black dress.
“These details seem important,” Preacher says in European swifts around the bend.

The rains come and wash away the things we bury, bodies and toy cars.
Lowlands become lakes and a lone, malaise blackbird lifts around the bend.

A boy, all elbows and knees, in corduroy everything, in the thick of it,
drives a truck with no wipers, no license, the stick shifts around the bend.

The homes with electric lose electric, and the newspaper floats off porch.
No news today, nor tomorrow these are philanthropic gifts around the bend.

The shirtless poet,
he writes on the fourth floor.
Corner of Bedlam and Squalor.
He’s running two experiments:
Ingesting only whiskey and
texting only ex-girlfriends.
He keeps a journal.
The title is
The Dishonest and the Deceased.
He’s seven days and forty-one pages in.
He’s sent 63 images of both himself and
empty bottles.
Three different women have shared his bed,
and each subsequent morning departed
with a similar sentiment: this never happened.
He’s drank ten liters, placed the empty bottles
on top of the cabinets. Proof. Yeah, I’ve been drinking.
I guess you can tell, he said. I’ve got friends.
Just haven’t seen them in a while.
He said he’s getting closer to the center.
Of what? Woman No. 2 asked.
Of myself.
I wouldn’t do that. Whatever you do.
It’ll help my.
Don’t do that.
My art.
This isn’t art.
I am art.
You’re drunk.
I can remember the first time.
I’m starting to.
What does.
Nothing.
You’re leaving.
No. Well.
The first time. Your grandma’s shed. 2007, 2008.
I’ve got work in.
I remember the smells.
The morning, she said.
The dew, the grass, the sweet wind.
Please.
Your husband’s no ******* poet.
I.
Let me remind you how poets love.

The air conditioner hiccuped.
A taxi door slammed outside.
A helicopter dipped past Squalor.
Through the window a beam of light.

But this never happened.
This never happened, he said.

I read a story the other day.
I read the headline.
It said: There is no god and we are his prophets.
We drive slowly on Saturdays.
At night in our home there are noises,
the dull thumps of ghosts.
We used to comment. Now we rollover.
I wake and return the blankets I’ve stolen.

In the mornings there is music.
A kitchen dance of tip-toes and arms at war with air.
The new car with its heated seats.
There’s a pace I like.
It’s microwaved tea;
it’s 11:30 a.m.;
it’s one more chapter before.

I listen to you get ready,
a chorus of tubes uncapped
and capped, of hairdryers
plugged and unplugged.
You sing softly.
I hear this, too.

Beyond this house,
a brook, a mountain, a trout.
Distances mapped.
Plans drawn with
parallel lines, listless and drifting.
Within,
there is no god, and he is love,
and we are his prophets.
You are my practitioner.
And I, yours.

The berries are poison berries, the boy said.

What kind of poison?

Bad kind.

How do you know?

Mom told me.

Dare me to eat one?

Yup.

It don't taste like poison.

What does poison taste like?

Worse than this.

I want some.

How poisonous is it?

Mom says it'll **** you.

Then why'd you eat one.

I want to go to heaven.

I thought they were a little poison, like make you **** funny poison.

I figure if I want to make it to heaven this is the only way.

I can't believe this. You didn't say anything—

Bible says all children go to heaven because they is innocent.

I'm going to throw up. You just put your finger on your tongue, right?

Further back. To the tonsil thingy.

It's not coming. I can't. I can't. This—I didn't feed the dogs.

Don't worry about the dogs. We're going to heaven.

Bible doesn't say that.

Preacher does.

Well.

Preacher said it's impossible for a rich man to go to heaven, pretty tough for a fat man—on account of the way being so narrow—and just plain hard for everyone else. The only one guaranteed is kids.

I haven't even kissed a girl.

You're not missing much.

I've only kissed Mom.

Yeah. She kisses okay.

What if the kids aren't innocent?

Kids are always innocent.

I feel funny.

Me too.

But what about kids that do bad stuff?

Like?

You know, fighting and cussing and stuff.

They don't know better. Free ticket to heaven.

Huh.

My tummy is making put-titter-put noises.

What if a kid slayed another kid? You know thou shalt not slay.

I didn't slay you.

I'm just asking.

I wouldn't slay.

You didn't tell me these berries would **** me. Seems the same as slaying me.

Throw up.

I tried.

Let me help you. I ain't losing my free ride.

Geez. You're hurting me.

Throw up.

I can't.

I'm going to punch you.

Don't punch me.

Throw up.

You punched me.

I'm going to do it again.

No.

Throw up.

You punched me again.

Let me try cramming my fingers down there again.

Ow.

If God chalks this up to slaying.

He will.

I'll find a way.

A way?

To heaven.

Rain on tin
the pang and elasticity of
time and the time it
takes nature to sway
from right to left
from outer to inner
to notice the girl
on the edge of the room
with a drink in her hand
and then there's that
old lightning, self-proclaiming
its importance to the
gymnasium with grumbling
thunder then we're all
tossing dice and teaching
each other dance moves,
saying the ******* the edge
needs a pair of new shoes
and someone responds:
Isn't that the woman who kills?

And I go home with her
rain on tin and a summer
wade through Cottonwood Creek
we're in a shed
and it's musty, dangerous,
and possible
a killer takes certain care
of your body with her
cautious hands.

And if they get together
anything's possible,
whether instant infidelity or
absolute combustion.

One more way to alleviate tension,
to land mine
the curious,
to ooh,
to ahh.

I've seen a sheriff put a bullet in a deer's head in Colorado Springs,
I've lived a winter through in an unfinished basement,
I've made obligatory love to a dark-haired woman,
her red dress above her head.

I've stumbled to the karaoke bar
just to read out of a notebook of unfinished poetry,
and when the crowd complained I said,
"These are the last words I will speak."

I've thrown my wallet into my grandmother's open casket,
I've got a punch card behind the counter at the liquor store,
I've ended a job interview by throwing a fake apple through
a glass window.

I've seen the battlefield of Antietam.

I've watched the rearview mirror for hours expecting
her husband to find me.

I've hidden a gun under my shirt, and I've
got this song in my head I've been meaning to write down.

I've got a good intention and a couple theories and a
Southern affection for personal secrets.