Maybe NothiNg at all A child spat outthe back of a Jeep Cherokee pacifer from a steel mouthbed of blood and glassan aftermath,

maybea father bending down cigarette lighter depressedor telling a son a joke, or to shut up,

a drunk blacked outblown tire, run lightmaybe nothing at all.

II.

The Graves We DiG

Pampas grass—the hill’s green, gold tent.

Wind visible in soft feathers.Lost time takes shape

on decayed headstones,day takes the tree’s shadows.

Dead straw, dead fieldafter seven years I return home. Though I have not committed

the crimes of the deadaren’t I the same as any of these

words carved in stone—life strung together as a name?

Grave DiGGer

I’ve driven home from Atlanta to find my black lab licking its lips

glazed in mice blood. Feeding them to the pythons

would have accomplished something—the lab already fat enough for winter.

Now the snakes are hungry, the mice gone.I pick fur from cold hardwood,

fill small boxes with crushed carcasses.Blood’s iron perfumes this mess.Outside, I dig a grave for the sky buried in the moon’s ivory width.