Wild Eye Wise
***
Nobody loved like they did
those nights splayed
like open books,
soggy foils at humid peace,
at least until the next
morning riot.
***
I ran to the coffee shop
last street down,
shouting your name
to a third person,
wearing your face
under the lamplight,
flickering over like a newsreel
from the next day, with
a breaking story.
***
It cracks like a stiff spine
making it difficult
to turn the page, like us
ing in the morning
roar of crow song threshing
in the birches;
then running buckets under
the ceiling spigots at night
all reason disavowed.
***
All reason is tuned
to divining rods
searching for water
searching for the cardinal
heart beneath the ribs
flipping its bird truth
at the bathroom mirror,
in that quick space between
sticking it out, or cutting bait.
***
Our cracked spines are chapped
palms, pocked open hymnals
bleating profanely
the dissonance
that is in our key,
the twelve-tone psalm
they hallow, as they learn the
liturgy of its respiration:
its own dodecaphonic Ode to Joy.
***
Two fated deer, supping
out tonight amongst
the thorny thorns
stretch their necks brink-over
a steep cove’s edge,
and a brittle rocky drop,
stretching out for the sweetest
berries only; come the long
rut way through the woody woods
only to stare at themselves
square-wise, astonished survivors,
wild eye to wild eye wise.
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