What Remains

Two swallowtails mating 
after the storm –
wings washed brown 
with rain, edges pinking-sheared
by hours and days of the impossible – 
too weary to rise an inch above 
Highway 90 as it smokes its heat 
into the evening air, too damaged 
to be what they are – they roil 
like water snakes.

Scarecrow

Scarecrow crafter, burlap-tailor,
black-eye smudger, when I’m done,
crows mistake you for a man:
silent shooer, stock-still farmer,
to them alone a tartan terror.
I fisted through your flannel,

Photograph, 1984

Swallow this
house — bedroom window paned
like a roadside cross
erected for a reckless boy, wreath
of camera-flare, paper flower of real grief
with too bright a center, edges finally fading
in shoebox weather.

Feral

Three golden dogs sprawled
in the dawn cold, honeyed

bellies full of secrets as they lie
behind the illusion

of a low picket of ruby glass,
the sun behind it, trick of the light