Out, among gray and cloud-spliced
verities, beige and stubbled hollow stalks,
a doe held her place on the rise.

And I, slippered and robed,
gathered the costs of my comforts -
the papers and pages of heat
from a white and resin box.

She tasted the air of me,
upwind of her, and the twin steams
of her core beat out, split the chill -
pulsed and sinuous.

Her black eyes unmoved,
she stroked the ground once
with a forefoot and her left ear
funneled toward me.

It is winter now and what hides
beyond the rise, before the snows
and thin forage is for her to know,
not I, for I am not that dear.

Was thinking of you as I ******
the chardonnay out, black exile
to sewage. Was thinking of you
and those trusts - thrice drawn
out of me - breath ******
in perverse resuscitation -
collapsed a lung
and shudders my gut
in the steam of it. And then,

Soft-bodied and filament,
a spider reared up,
pin-legged,
from behind the tank,
and topped the unset clock,
flashing twelve and twelve
and twelve again.

And with my one hand free
I plucked it up, loose-pinched
between my thumb and index,
held it up before the mirror,
before the medicine cabinet mirror
and the lights, buzzing rifts,
bad as daybreak and drought.

And thus, this spider and you,
dropped upon the waters,
yellowed and foamed, spun
quickly down the trap,
a larger purge to a purging.

They hung laundries like prayers,
these women, there, new to pants,
between Beechfield and Brisbane.

And all the actions were in the alley,
the zipper between, where we,
young thuggeries in our dungarees,
plied bicycle trades on summer days.
Even flies shunned our manes.

Fists and spit and baseball cards.
Skates and snakes and fenced-in yards.
Each these swinging statues,
thrown, frozen, spun, fastened
to concrete and rash.

And yes, there, the women,
the mothers, pinning towels
like code, pinning sheets on wire,
glancing through a breeze, they saw it all:
saw us, the young and barely criminal,
rang it up the chain.
And yes, oh yes, these mothers,
there'd be hell to pay,
there'd be hell to pay
come dinnertime.

I ain't seen no crow do no killin',
never in a day.
****, they ain't even a squabble.
I seen a lot a' crows
on a lot a' roads,
courteous as squaredance,
bobbin' over ****, skunk,
whatever red,
always cool to clear the way
and wait fer a passin'.

I ain't seen no dead crow neither,
not a one.
I seen 'em harried though,
hammered like B-17's
swattin' one o nines.
But that ain't no nevermind.

Pigeons, yep. Lotsa pigeons.
Slapped a few sparra's on the grill.
Never took a pheasant
but I seen 'em,
all broke feather
and bonnet in the ditch.

Baldies?
Now that's a bird that's got one
helluva marketin' department.
Proud one that.
Eats the eyes and *** first.
Runs off the competition.
**** things don't know
bumpers from blimps.
But wha' d'ya do?

A con-vo-cation, yep,
that's what they call 'em -
hell, we almost snuffed 'em
clean out and now we call 'em
a convocation?
Seems a bit stilted to me.
But there you have it -
a convocation a'eagles
a ****** a' crows.
Just goes to show ya',
them namers don't know.

The so and many ways to sing the breeze,
whether it is breath or breathed,
or hummed in trees unleaved,
bison-heard on plains or high crested seas,
it is wind that rattles here - here upon the eaves.

Church bells are not pealed, but pushed
as chimes hung from the porches of time,
piped and true turbulent - these random tines
of a taking - chattered on a window,
scraped on a pane, loose-glazed and limed.

And whether we praise or for that matter pray,
wind don't speak my name, don't gust me down,
to each and all a song, pitched as a gale or a brief
unsettled sway, slack as linen and sung that way.

Saps run before the weathers -
hordes of sugar in the root -
what little stays - thin and capillary,
above ground, contests
the filigreed fingers of water
with denser sweets.

And thus, unleaved and ****,
what to the eye appears barren,
rude to the dog-eyed sun,
summer nests exposed as frail,
stricken to bone in winter,
stands as a man I once knew -
propped by his own root,
wide as shade and none other.

You left hair in the tub,
toothpaste splatter on the mirror,
a wadded towel on the rod,
wet footprints on the floorboards
marking a stumble to the kitchen
where you guzzled milk
from the carton, there with
the door open, cold spilling
out like flumes to your feet -
and I loved it.

A sudden spasm raked,
raked your shoulders,
your torso, all caught
ecstatic at the mingling
of milk and hot bath blood.

Wearing your robe
like a prizefighter,
pink to the ring
and gearing up for a bout
that never comes -
now that's the stuff
my sweet **** -
that's the stuff of the long fight,
the long familiar,
the mustache I lick from your upper lip.