Steam burst from the opening and hot words,
that sleeve of tea poured through a spout
(a drop plunked on the plate like a huffy ember).
A green fluorescence set in a shallow, some leach
from a reeky hell. She was too earnest, too bird-chirp,
too leaf as lime turned it blue. A terrifying rot
but the teeth of eight Dobermans in downward descent
was what she feared more. Say it ain’t so, she said.
Ham said, Sit on the right
to see the river lapse into least resistance. Watch the night
trick the vertical lamp of a gray glass window
back into darkness. This is where I leave it to others,
Louise said, to make sense of that musical motion
at the margin of sight, the razor wire
and other ruthless markers, the axe
wrapped in tree roots. She returned to the city
after hearing obscenities said in the house by the high school
in the dawn of a reasonable doubt.