Not once
and a river yet: a rapid run
of reckless mouths gnash
their way through the alphabet’s
many motorways.
The crowd—
faces like hot dominoes
in doldrums (their destiny
too dense to parse, too dear
to describe)—is in denial.
*
Give them this day before
they chew even
the scenery,
before they crush the shunts
that keep the sky in its place
and squash the sarsaparilla
tufts of cloud that congeal
at the eye’s very edges.
Give
them the blood, the bread,
the ghost, the salty tines
of Satan’s seasick fork—
it’s hot:
open a window or something!
I feel the heat of a holy oven
upon my household.
*
To care
is to sometimes kill
as we have sometimes
been told.
To care
is to carve the image
taker
into this idle tree
and border crossing.
*
Under how many watts
must this age be broiled?
Douse me in better water
for brisker belief.
Do this
in remembrance of
our impractical head
and heads, our
illiterate
heart and hearts.