Maybe it’s the way those stubborn
right angles look against
that impossible cyan—the butter yellow,
the unfinished wood against those cotton
candy–coated cloud bellies
too good to be chewed
Maybe it’s the way two halves
of a bull’s skull in the teeth
of gnawing pups are as perfectly dull
white & scarred as the moon
or the toilet on the porch next door
(& who knows how this all came to be)
Maybe it’s the way the twilight
hoots & howls & shakes
in the smell of fresh
year on the air, that petrichor
giving breath to the night,
more a presence than a time
Maybe it’s the way worms
are always making homes out of holes,
out of graves, out of Zeus
the catahoula & Remington
the redbone hound & too many
feral cats to count
Maybe it’s the way a stone
in the hand feels like holding
a river of histories
rubbed soft as the wake,
the way it will break a mirror
before it breaks the surface
