Unmade Beds


Little animals go
through the thicket,
by up turned pots
and on into the wild.

The broken hoe,
the rusty bucket,
the gardner rots
in his compost pile.

After  Ryan Stanford Smith's
"Stumbling On as the Light Fails"

It is either a bird in the hand
or a stick of yellow butter; heat seeks
to order the day, the hazy
creamlike spilling of eyes down cheeks.
Yes, what the bush says is true.

Artillery either blasts or laughs,
or points to monumental clouds; we're blaming
carrion, echos of royal trumpets on the hill.
Still we rub dark in our eyes, without evidence,
without reaching, and paint flame in blues.