POEM

May-wind, cold breeze & I drink down this acidic
blueberry juice; can you feel the flow of filth
in the streets’ beating? It was not in my mind

to pick the scraggly pine from the dewy ground,
put it flush to my nose & wait as the rabbit
hopped across my path, eyeing me, like a sniper

hiding in a dusty sandhill. Waiting, for what exactly?
I wait & wait for the TV to blank-out; preachers
selling “healing oils”—where is my outlet to escape

the backwardness of this planet? Odd weight, way
of putting things, the Almighty has left the sanctuary,
like a flustered minster that, at one moment, warns

a young woman to steer clear of “evil men,” who later
sees her leaving &, like a hunter’s spirit, a notorious
wasp that throbs & bounces from window-to-window,

widow-to-widow, waits with pitchfork in-hand,
wanting to plow her land, as he calls to her
like the mating-sounds of a rooster, running around

like a decapitated chicken. The birds will fly on,
the fish will swim on, & the hypocrites will
be as the wolves, flagging you down, flipping you

the bird after Sunday morning, turning your sons
& daughters into Garbage Pail Kids without all of
the fun; ratty snail-slime, which their dental records

will confirm. Going for the throat. Society is far more polite
when you flip through a comic book. There are
no bad omens. A plump, brilliant red cardinal

lands on the telephone pole above me. I’m the worm
that it has yet to see. I keep expecting to vanish
like exploding gun-powder smoke, Fate will gulp

me down; I walk in the garden, waiting for a snake
to pluck me away, as the squirrels on the edge of
limbs bicker at me furiously, like an old couple.