FALLOW GROUND
your washboard hands
raw immaculate cloths
on a line survival spoils
a squall’s raving assault
not least because you are
what didn’t and wouldn’t
drift from ridge to furrow
at long last you burn into
snow racing across a field
a shadow close to baptism
the windbreakers won’t slip
untethered and reclaimed
it’s not another panic room
a witness to your transience
this moment you fall in love
this flesh near an open fire
GEOMETRIES OF EXILE (OR)
every day we peddle
our nameless names
on the sidewalks the boulevards
the train stations demanding
attention this other thing
we cannot name pleading
to speak again as the crowd
watches the idea of a crowd
our labor our soap our echo
beyond the tracks a mule
to the south a white pony
a farm to the east smoke
our fists or lives written
or drawn by a mute child
who makes the color blue
scream all night like a voice
or a sky or nothing at all
