Meditation and Form

A bird is flying
into the open mouth of evening

while our thoughts
crawl on their low bellies.

Even leaves are tongues.
Then a moon rises

inside this skull
of sky, the way a snake

can’t decide
if it is paper skin

or living form.
And if the moon claims

the world as its first thought,
as the primitive heart

I saw yesterday dangling
like a fist

from a tomato plant,
then the black water

of our bodies spreads
across the field

after so much rain,
full with thunderstorms

of temper and bad spirits.
Then a hoot owl’s voice

presses through screen
mesh when I awake empty

to this bed. Surely our moon
is a wagon stalled

in a great prairie sea.
Surely it rolled out

from a thousand acres
of ribs and flesh,

to pause its ghostly heart
between beats.