Poetry

That God first placed an angel
with a flaming sword to guard
Eden’s closed gates, that He gave us
signs to declare a different logic,

In that endless season of dead grass
and rotted pumpkins, I was a boy
who stood in a tree and named all the cows

Leroy, wisdom in a chuckle, 
            Gold chains drape around his neck—
                         High yellow on high yellow—

He walks back from the
                                         window in half-shadow

a half-shade himself

The day moon the
                                     spirit of the morning

The girl seems to fly
the hawk above her, a kite of feathers

We are tired of arguing about who is the most hurt.
Better to toddle off for a little Chinese.
The locust flowers each year like cornmeal in the gutters.

Spark, then fire begins. Fire pulls oxygen
deep into the box. Come, child, there’s something
I’d like to show you in the back of this

That day the boys
took us quickly.
They took us calmly.