VM

meadow's way

past the cattle grates

winter refracted

streaming through that grate, down

the awning, trundle and

come to rest

past

through how many hands

young once

dead boxcar

amid branches

every hobo dream, each

tubercular top-rider,

all the window-flipped

spent cigarettes

all

refracted in

cold dense enough

to carry these

slightly changed

smudged or slower

or differently-pitched

drained of lore

of local color

seen

older now

LW

needless romance

less laconic in those days

we lacked tradition to draw

on, lacked baptism

came in new

wasted spatter

somehow now the needful

thing is

less

brilliant but harder

dry branches packed deep

in shallow depressions

along the edge

purplish

grapevine smoking

fleet faces dimmer, receding

in the smoke and crackle

smaller words, older words,

dimmer

we stand apace

and overhear each other

unpack

absent dream

EP

yes

those too far to be heard

bristling in the branches

quail aside the empty promenade

closed the county fair and

nude stalks and crabgrass

birds too far off

risen low-whistling in the violet

traced by

the rising violet

enough of a mask, enough

to last

slip out, down the eaves

and grass splayed ahead

aside the empty river

promenade filling with

low nightsounds heard

overhead birds

spatter of stars

murmur of what? benediction?

drift down slowly enough

to escape

notice

inert enough

WS

summer the boy drowned

shallow riverrun pond

knowing

just the numinous

negative edge

later winter

snow over

frozen lichen

sharded walls

half-gantries

yes I've been

cold long enough

to listen like that

to hear the high-pitched

crack

of the season receding

compressed tightly enough

to stand on

low and level enough

to see the seasons

enjamb

somewhere along

where the boots crossed over