My Father Wrecks His Third Pickup Truck

coming home                       the winter’s west paddock rusted shut

he was tired from his                         fictitious primordial condition

from what he said to her          leaning over      I said she drives like one, a woman

She packs like one               her right breast under the pink apron

he fell asleep thinkingso

gangs of snow       gloves dear pasture why won’t

you admit me         landlocked                  like we’re in a drum

in a horse-trough                 beating half-time

i was asleep, not drunk

insurance unpaid                as if the footprints

actually                                   .            actually

lead there

lead there

left turn signal                             shaking black and white lake

listen for the gravel which means                     he’s safe he’s home

he’s a leap from the matter                       to elation

to patches of cloud                            on the soft needle bed of scotch pine

poured out the wine                                 it hurts that nothing else can grow

in us                   just opacity                              just, on a slow, clear night

thinking of how the road turns away,        it puts down its head

on the dining room table                            to capture a false labor, a sense of labor

that makes him a suspect that makes, if I remember right, makes him

careen off to disappointment                    we did not do it right

lost how many petals                 from our bonemeal bodies

lost how much vibration            all of him hard to look at him                                god-booted phantom on

the sub-woofer           the shell of the black Ford

stop, put our hands

inside                   lucky dog you        the skin of his cheek abraded

grape sour, his sugary               yeasty             breath and he said

girls don’t I can’t                               and we just carried him