she wrote an entire novel
about a man who cut his hand
on a can of sardines

he found in a silent cupboard
of a prairie house abandoned since
the dust bowl, or perhaps since
the eighth day of creation

the can he opened with a rusty blade
he found in yet another home of ghosts
on a treeless lane in Topeka

where he spent
four naked nights
hiding from the cruelest January,
his memories, and the devil

who his mama said eschewed the cold
and he believed her, but built a fire all the same
until a fat ****** sheriff came
and sent him into the night

where a wailing wind waited
and blew him south through the dark
like just another tumbleweed

when he finally
landed, dry and thrashed
in his new sagging palace
the snows had melted,
the winds calmed

there he found fine fodder
in a tin with sailor standing proud
a feast of fish at his feet

was a shame to behead
the mariner with such a dull tool
only to find mush and ancient fetor
anointed by three drops of his red blood
the can demanded in exchange
for its long dead bounty