She leaned close enough that I could smell the snuff
That swam around in her mouth minus the teeth to hold it in place.
Keep the red slashes on your right as you go out she croaked.
You’ll get twisty turny up tword the rocks , but always to your right-the slashes.
When you’ve had enough,
Put them on your left to come back.
How would I know when I’d had enough?
It didn’t seem like a question I could ask her.
She straightened only a bit, enough to lift her stick in the direction we faced
On your left to return, she repeated. Or we’ll probably not see you again.
I looked back after a few steps and she waved me on with the back of her hand.
A “shooing” motion.
When I turned after a few more paces,
She was gone, a red slash on the tree where she’d been
After the explosion,
That really wasn’t an explosion-which would have been preferred-
Probably more an implosion;
a cave in
Where everything that had been built
-nope, too passive-
Where everything that I had built-crumbled in on me
Suffocating
Crushing.
Had it been an explosion all would have been blasted free and gone.
To the four corners, as they’d say
Leaving me free under the stars,
With space to walk around, free to look for
Pieces that might fit together again in some form or fashion.
Maybe even better this time.
First the moon, then the sun,
Light my path across fields, dusty roads,
Swamps, fetid drainage ditches that never drain.
Under bob wire, along streams,
Finally to the hard pack just at town's edge.
There was nothing.
Not a piece of a shred of a shard,
Of the lies that had built my life.
It might be a good thing,
That I was still wearing them where they’d collapsed across me
like bloodied drapes or entrails of a gut shot buck.
It was night again.
So unimaginable.
I’ll wait till morning-there’s one more place to look.
Why tell the truth, my old man used to say,
When you have a lie that fits so well.
Her legs seemed impossibly long,
Like they were telescoping as he rolled
Her underwear down her thighs
And finally past her bent knees.
Outside, buzzard shadows scudded
across the ground, in ones and twos at first.
Then, as she rolled onto her side, offering,
In groups of eight or ten.
He had no desire
to step out into the hot sun to count
Not because they’d see him.
They knew where he was.
They could sense dead things-
Even souls and spirits.
The parching wind crackled through dried leaves,
Drought doing autumn’s work
Ahead of the calendar.
She had cried earlier.
Though he had felt bad at the time,
He had no recollection of why.
Now spooned against her
He pushed in slowly-
Over her hissing.
She was as dry as the yard
And he had nothing to change that.
Blinking awake, I couldn’t immediately place
The sound.
But at three a.m.
Any sound that’s not the buzzing of cicadas
Or tree frogs,
Begs attention
A clatter? A clicking bump?
There had been serious rain.
Was the river on the rise
Banging the boats together?
Might have to go down and lengthen the lines.
Grabbed the flashlight and stepped out into the damp chill
Where the halfmoon light glowed
Weakly through the fog.
Hadn’t taken the time to
Pull on my wet sneakers
-an ordeal in itself-
So buckled immediately when an acorn cap
Bit into my bare foot.
Then again, on the next step when it stuck there.
I had to lean against the cabin’s slippery wall to lift my foot;
In my dotage I need either two feet on the ground
Or a hand assist.
I envied the horses on this, lift one leg still three down.
The river was in good shape if a little murky
from the storm but the boats were riding fine.
Cans were scattered around the patio
Probably a coon-long gone now.
A skunk would have left his aromatic calling card and coyotes would have announced
Their presence.
I hadn’t carried the .22 out with me
Because shooting guns in the middle of the night
Just out of a dead sleep is
The most appalling kind of folly.
Then, from somewhere on the mountain
Came the mournful call of a Great Horned Owl
Too faint to have heard from inside.
I tried to answer but sounded ridiculous.
Embarrassed for the owl, I shut up.
He moved and called again.
Then again from the triple sycamore just downstream.
I’d clean up the mess in the morning. Appreciative.
The owl was worth getting up for.
It’s full summer now,
Too late.
Two months ago
A pair of Orioles were tending their hanging nest
In a drooping branch of the old shag hickory
Not ten feet from the corner of the deck.
The industrious feeders bringing morsels to the three
Gaping beaks, snug in their bag.
Are gone now.
Their hardscrabble life
Was entertainment for weeks.
But it’s ended now.
The Orioles are still around
As visitors.
Flashes of orange crossing
The river from side to side
Stopping occasionally to tweet.
But gone
My tired eyes follow an orange streak
Down above the shallows
Where my old man, hunched in his jon boat,
Cigarette clenched firmly between his gums,
Would take smallmouth on a spinner.
In his time he killed more
Bass than anyone along this stretch.
That time has ended.
Now his ashes settle in the same shallows,
With the darters and minnows
Mingling with algae among the gravel,
Hopefully food for stoneflies...
The double call of the owls in the hardwoods
Had become threads in a dream that made no sense.
As a boy he had confused the deep throb of the towboat diesels pushing coal upriver,
A sound that could only be heard in the dead of night, with his own heartbeat.
When the tow went round the upriver bend and faded,
He awoke with a start fearing that without the deep vibration he would die.
The soft coo of the mourning doves finally woke him.
The mossy boulders where he coiled had held the sun’s warmth well into the night
Rattlesnakes and copperheads also liked the warm fissures
But he never minded sharing..he’d had worse in his bed.
The buttery glow of the pallid morning sun
Did little to dilute the haze shrouding the ridge.
He had not planned on sleeping up there
But the long day-spooked by the moon-had abruptly fled
Leaving him unsure of the path.
It was hard to imagine, so many years later
That he had touched him just the once.
Had he meant, just the once, in that one night,
Or more than one time within that night.
Or just one time every night of many?
His explanations were never made clear.
Even a child knew he was full of shit.
The overlook revealed buzzards below;
Pepper specks riding the updrafts from the valley floor.
She knew the whole time
Which was probably why she had never touched him
Which would have been his clear preference.
But all is forgiven
Nothing forgotten
Or is it the other way around?
It would make all the difference.
She was open to him later,
But he never lay a hand on her
Until much later when she pleaded that he wouldn’t.
Now he heard them often
Treading the squeaky floorboards at night
As he shuddered in his bag
Behind a locked door
That wouldn’t keep them out,
If they wanted to come in.
But all is forgotten
Nothing forgiven
A pack had moved in after picking the place
Up for cheap In a sheriff’s sale.
Their addled plan was to rehab, then flip it.
A scheme that fell to pieces once the meth dried up and
Their meager talent in the trades became obvious.
The best of them was an agreeable mutt named Doobie
who grew fond, not so much of me, but of the kitchen scraps
that found their way over the fence.
Over time, he got some of the best cuts
as he needed them more than I did.
Jamie, still in boots and slicker commiserated
over a coffee in the yard once the fire was out.
Judged it a total loss.
It was that before the fire I told him, and sure
He’d take a shot of Crown in the coffee.
He pointed out that they had raised pretty decent kale
But who couldn’t do that?
Around the corner of the collapsed porch
Entwined in the fence, were the last red tomatoes of the season,
Most gone brown now under weeks of frosts,
The hard green ones will stay that way over the winter.
Stillborn. Come too late.
Hot Bottoms 