one street named after a saint or mountain, another after blood,

      pealing bells, loose live gerunds strung across, pitched in hum,

      every eye a question, a pan, an establishing shot.

      the alternate ending: wreck this, move with speed, a leash,

      obedient click and what follows, wagging, eager, full breath

      after the foot lifts, the cloud of upper sound in flat wet midday

      warmth. you want drag in chorus, field spent, the clench of taking

      aim at exhausted scrap, blowing it all –

      the name of a pocket, a hand-carved tattoo.

      in a red state, spell out the lesson here, map out the power

      and water, or the rising lawn to disappear in

      some fresh atlas, the new record.

      practice wearing details yourself,

      ghosted, twinned to a lighthouse.

      movement in the dark requires geometry or optimism, a hand

      along plaster, counting pockmarks.

      streaked trees from the truck bed

      the leaky world wets through

      even this frame and mat

      in the reeds, some insistent paper hum

      in dragonflies mating, their drunken

      swoop and hover.

      the place where the land stopped and the water

      began to green itself,

      we walked here to talk about death,

      to take off our pants.

      you could ask me to push you in,

      demand to be surprised,

      your fierce mouth overflowing (bursting/bursting open).

      the fine skin of a fever, bleaching. there’s some paper, sit with it, a salt

      pig, a fuse, fresh slang, hitches in the running. tell amber in an evening;

      the plant, the factory we call to, trembles, a near-sweet burnt smell –

      name it, four or five ways at least.

      maybe the only way to think is what’s cut is closer

      to being still,

      a pearly stream of fuel across the asphalt,

      a peal – your hand a weapon,

      just touching a plant or a child

      in this place, just following orders, listening

      well – that’s where trouble waits.

      welcome arrow, stippled like split bone,

      the moon’s nothing to pray over, a noun in the ear of the watchers

      a dog bolts through in arc and amble,

      clots of people weigh worry

      wet nose against the back of a hand, a cool comma,

      all moons are comparisons, possible constants, unflinching

      this begins, quiet, craning.