day makers


the well

it called me.


speech of hooks.


shot once

into the air

and left the horse

to hang

in the barn.


goodbye

town that I know.


little black feathers

on little black ants

better

that this also be

goodbye.


I saw many things

wrong

as a child.


the way the living

not the dead

would turn.


the night

pared from the wall


a thin thing

over the thin mouth

of my sister.


I thought it all

a circus

sorrowed

but a circus

still.


now I watch

a barn

being raised

and want nothing

for the swallow

on my arm.


a human word


is rape


and human

to go

when called.


I was wrong

to take the knife

from the boy

in the well.


to think it

merely shyness

keeping him small

in that drawn

bucket.

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