so look up from your comfort
see the vastness that makes you so small
its the beginning of contemplation
a gift from the Universe, to you

reflectively i
      opened &
closed
                regularly,
i was
petals blushed
        in the
height of
summer & a
           frostbitten
bud
in the throes of
winter, except this
                year
   the sky not
grey brought
a heat everyone
              could feel 
except me,
i waited
for an
          opening that
didn't come,
                  a flower
refusing to yield
to sun,
                limbs
staying firmly
crossed, lost in a
place where
             nothing
warm survives
for long.

Like wild oats
the lonesome poets
grow in the ditches
alongside back roads
and when it rains
they drink too much
like the low cotton
in dry fields forgotten
by dirt poor farmers
whose wives run off
with the first stranger
who wipes his shoes
on the porch before
selling her a pretty pair
of green lace underwear
like a bird sick of its tree
dreaming of new leaves.

as a child the
woods
at dusk seemed
to have a way of
snaking
past five, six,
seven, eight
o'clock
    & despite
the stomachs hollow
ache we stayed
   safe inside
barbed
wire & wet moss
filled with
     days old raindrops
but every
good thing stops,  
it happened
      slowly,
the world coaxed
me, I turned
        round &
noticed the
stirrings
     of a town, your
hair
yellow as husks
     against a
wall of
slate & rocks
slipped

out of

focus.

there are
names we
do not say,  
they form
pockets,
places the
rain has to
move to
get around.
a note that
when struck
is as
resonant
as the wolf,
whose howl
breaks the
sea, carves
the name
through
you & me.

they say it
disappeared
years ago,
replaced
by steel, brick,
black tar roads
& yet
adrenaline still
flows
beneath the
surface of skin,
prey prepares
for a war it cannot
win &
I can't decide
if it was harder
then or now,
if the girl
fixing her hair
in the mirror
is a predator
or friend I'd
invite to
dinner.