After the pops we watched,
from the window. Rabid
or not, the raccoon flailed
like ribbons on a demo fan,
life pushed out like pulled air
in the driveway. Two more
from the cop to secure an end,
a spectacle, a gathering.
Five cracks in the driveway
to bring the neighbors out
for a killing. The mowers wind down.
We watched in awe the last
few pulses of agony
slow run to the gutter
where the last leaves
unraked on an afternoon,
mingled with road grit
and hunks of can,
were soon washed down
by the firemen
and their hoses.

I told Luke about it by the iced cream.

Just a forelimb on the road,
careless as a twig,
but no plunder for crows,
no worthy feast for a scavenge,
just hoof, hide and bone.

And that’s how they left her,
a narrow remain, somehow
shorn and distant thrown
as if her full and russet frame
had been lifted, held aloft
and in sacrifice taken up,
into some sanctified bounding
where car and deer ne’er met.

Like red leaves,
after tree had fallen.

Would you betray a maple for its shade -
deny yourself the cool comfort of dim light,
sweet woodruff and fern, ground ivy,
violet in spring? Columbine refuses
full sun. Your languors burn, blister
and peel with each maliced stroke
of a chainsaw.

Oh these blind trajectories,
these pure set conditions,
initial, merry, just so wandered -
a shell thus thrown, a plunged
albatross beak, a sheared
stab of ice, a moon’s pull
and a breath elastic -

All these and a calculus,
as crest to valley lumbers
in its way - sine to sine -
chopped though ever free
and unlapped after.

Yes, that is how to build a rogue,
how to find our love - our love
stacked crest to crest -
to lurch up, snag a gilded gannet,
round about a hunk of sun
and fist on some stiff unwary hull -
cast our cargos upon the sea.

It is 4 a.m.,
and a black dog breaks
crust on old snow - stumbles.
And a full moon looms
to reveal just east
a crackling of limbs felled
by gathered frosts and west
a barn owl arcs silent - a slurry
of cream, hunger and brown
winter **** hovered and plunged
by moon and yellow porchlight.
A black dog stiffens and sniffs -
limbs give no more crack.

I know only this:
It is 4 a.m. - something bled
and something fed
in the moon and yellow porchlight.

If not for the hair
caught in the corner
where the broom
cannot reach,
I would never know
that you were here.

And if not for the corner
where the broom
cannot reach -
if not for the moulding
that pinned it -
if not for the wall
and the ceiling’s crease -
if not for the rafters
and shingles,
there we would be no hair.

And if not for the hair,
there would be no fingers,
no soft care to tie a single knot,
then carry it to the window
and release you there.

And if not for the window,
if not for the wind,
if not for the wake -

A nest and blue eggs come April.

A shadow fell upon my sheeted crown,
and she whispered, “It is time, my bonny, it is time.”
And when I rose, a linen for cloak,
I stood shoeless on a cobbled road,
squeezed on a Georgian lane,
where tight faces hid behind tight curtains,
dim shadows in gaslight
with green and scurvy eyes.

With her palm light-pressed
at the base of my spine, she urged,
“Walk now, my bonny, it is time.’
And with the first trepid step the street
fell away in a crumble, the facades
shattered as crystal and sharp,
and bunched hills lurched up as strong backs
from a fall, snow dusted, studded
with black pine and all the tangles of wind.

And though I sought to turn and return
to the bed-warmth of my slumber,
there was nothing behind but gray plain,
gray sky, and the gray eye
Of she that bade me “Walk, my bonny,
it is time.” She then melted to a lynx, svelte,
plump-furred for winter and steaming -
she melted to a lynx and gamboled
down into the crease, down into cutting
stone, down below bones that crouch
as hills, where stiff creeks hide their prey.

And I followed, I followed as old women gavelled
out plainsong with brooms among tines.
I followed and trembled as snorts and howls
of unseen brethren called my name.
I followed, and each round pebble -
a chittering mark on my pink soft soles,
as I descended down the fleet-pawed path,
bent with the tortures of shoes,
and the pines lengthened as nails pounded
from below, some swift and urgent
hammerstrikes pinning a hard sky.

Her track led deeper, deeper
than the slanted roofless mill
wheel half crushed in ice and misuse.
Her track led deeper, deeper
than the vagrant hamlet where
no smoke from chimneys plumed.
And as the path narrowed, thorn rich
and squalid, I took to my knees
and palms and stretched before the mouth
of her den - fuming of musk and sulphur.
“It is time, my bonny, it is time.”...