Collision
Nights like these, the sky tips
like a kicked over bucket
and tens of millions of wings
are stitched to the Mississippi
wind’s long seam. But glass
houses false stars and promises
of endless flight. Then, sends
dark dreams. At dawn,
the groundscrapers descend,
and with gloved hands, gather
what nightmirrors have scattered.
They lift thousands of heavy
burdens in small bundles, bend,
stoop, collect and carry
warblers, thrushes, blood
and wings stilled mid-beat.
Skyscrapers rise, blind.
Groundscrapers kneel, tally
the cost, scrape the stone
so the streets can open
by sunrise to ordinary footsteps.
Between sky and ground
there is nothing like balance,
only collision,
and quiet twilit witness.
***
Preacherman and the Alligator
1
Preacherman was swinging with the birds
in the trees, toes tapping stones, heavy white
river dice. Mouth hanging open, and a swollen
tongue timbre was rattling the palmettos
and the reeds, sounding like Mama laughing
through her teeth. Sounding like something
big and wet digging in the cypress knees.
Maybe it was me that was swinging.
2
Albino alligator never stops
running, upright, two hind
legs pounding earth,
tail dragging furrows
in the muddy cane fields,
white leather hide bright
like prison lights.
I saw it sprint through
the strawberries, past
the cattle-kept mule
and her cows, past
the burnt-out truck, past
the three boys skinning
the milk-breath fawn.
3
Preacherman kept right on swinging, voicebox
rattle rhythm stalking me sick. It came in through
the kitchen window, waking me most every night.
The bottle, not even my bourbon ‘n branch, couldn’t
get that boyhood sour off the back of my tongue.
Some say Albino alligator is his twin, born hairless
and blind, raised on stolen milk. Some say ain’t it
strange you never see them the same day. Some say
something else with my name between their teeth.
I wish they wouldn’t.
4
I saw Albino alligator
run into town once,
crossing the tracks,
dodging the lights,
every dog barking
its throat red raw.
It tore through
the barbershop,
clawed up
the mirrors.
The men sat
silent and still,
just like they’d
always done.
They sat, and
Albino alligator
swept the sweep
girl out the back.
They sat, and
she screamed, sat
razors in hands,
sat staring straight
at spiderweb glass,
just watching
their faces
get old.
5
I heard Preacherman swinging whatever I did,
in the smoke behind the double shotgun blast,
in the tapping of a woman’s teeth against mine
when she kissed me. In my father-wound dreams
I tried to shoot him silent but didn’t have any ammo.
I loaded my gun with whatever I could find: peach pits,
silver dimes, fox teeth, glass eyes. I swear there’s a peach
tree growing out that gator’s big white head.
6
Albino alligator leaves
gouges in the trees,
buried axe-bite-deep,
high as a man can reach.
The first boy said
it climbs at night,
swinging the stars
down one by one, and
swallows them, that’s
why the sky’s poked
full of holes.
The second boy said
no, those holes are
bullet wounds,
from that war
we never
stopped fighting.
The third boy said
nothing at all, he
was still thinking
about that fawn.
That night, he tied
a worn rope around
his waist, and with
a white river rock walked
straight into the swamp.
When they pulled
his bloated body out,
the rope was gone,
but he still seemed
burdened
by something.
7
Now I run through the cane.
And now the song is in my mouth. And the white river dice
are heavy in my pockets.
And the song will go on until your own children swing.
Until their children choose between carrying or climbing
up and falling off stones.
Until the water rises over the roof of your house,
and the white gator scratches at your door.
***
A Very Big Horse
I think that it’s quite possible we live
inside a horse’s eye, you and me, yes,
and your mama and Billy. Really,
everyone you've met in your five years
and will meet in a thousand more.
What if when he shuts his eye to sleep,
our sky goes dark at night. And when
he opens it in the morning,
his day is also ours.
You don't know about dimensions yet,
but the fourth dimension is time,
and I think
horse is the fifth.
Well yes, of course to us he’d be
a very big horse,
but maybe also we are so small
to him, smaller than tadpoles
or pinky toenails or the blackberries
by the train tracks.
And in this same way, the horse might
be a little blackberry to his meadow
and to the sun on his back.
Yes, I suppose you’re right,
this would make the horse our God,
but no, I don’t think he needs
anything from us.
See, a small enough horse
could live in the meadow
of your eye,
and you wouldn’t even know
he was there.
