The huckster breath in my loins
cries blood and brains don’t mix.
A verb picks the throat
apart, the pit of Adam’s apple
clotting. Wheels turn
fears into eyes, flesh
into unmarked flocks of roads.

New clothes for sorrow
cement on stable backs
erase today. A higling
line of men press slowly into snow
over lost streets. Multistated
tattooed trucks
haul loads of shepherds’ echoes
and swarthy stars forever
away.

The mind’s cocoon is fat with sheep
as fact is Friday’s pay.
The day’s long shadow cast
night’s muscling hinges
spring a cheap trap.
Children of this tock of verbs
we settle into something that is
not us, that is
not flesh, that was
not meant to be
the wax sun’s stupid enemy.