Time When the Birds Turn Silver

time when the turning birds silver      time exploding brined        like sweet  lemons      
time wolves bark        skunks slip into coops        fishing line knots  up        roads slick
proud with ice
         the boys I fuck all eat    candy        
smell like hi-bounce balls      out of a dime machine       girls     hide knives in boots        

doesn’t cost much to turn a person      chickenfeed    they say so-and-so’s            working the
feedlot
      mean ratting to the cops        squeak kettle  and the buds shine            ice will float
anything
         you can think of          under the grass      sharks and under the sharks     
mirrors           come on cousin         sunday     you know what we’re gonna do while    they’re
at church
       wake up now


tent pole broke got you in the mouth
       I saw the tooth fly      but you blacked  my eye later      
in utah strangers pretended        we were both boys        my  voice lower       even if the
bengals jersey
         showed my tits they    weren’t  dawn spit lines      between leaf and
sandstone
     picnic tables scared me worse         

left in the boxcar       grapes and a stiff blanket        sky dead like your father         
enameled       I mean      hit it it breaks like teeth          outside the cornfield       no one
talks
          when the wind blows          no one slices your    arm a little        to get at the
resin
       

sometimes I wake up       with a mouse on my tongue        a baby mouse         
sometimes with a cleft palate      that dogwood with colored      glass all  hung in it      
don’t go towards the creek from there      walk the other way  I found          some
cracked gravestones
       I make rubbings

 

slit a fish open its belly shines          no shame in it only rusty hooks        old lures       
waterbugs pretty as you         you meaner than geese in the pond     touch sticks to the
electric fence
       like my sister’s hand on it      smells like  horses       crying where       is there
a hollow
       tree for wishing in       drinking           whiskey to hear          the bullfrogs clearer