The germs wear jackets covering scars,
honey tears, nasty hangovers, dirty trysts.
He wears a mask, behind it, a sly smile.
That poem is unfinished, attractive, but
infectious to a fault.
Have you not heard the stories of knights?
Charging fields, mice racing out into the storms
the rats clustering, until the Black Death
gets all sweet notes, penned declarations
of love, lost in ashes of dark sky.
The alcoholic poem is difficult to find.
It waits below Plum Creek, next to an
orange decaying soda can. It has some
prettier images: dark pubs, a jukebox
playing old Steely Dan, a cigarette.
She uncovers that poem and lays it flat.
She can not look, the words are red and
violent and hurt her eyes. The font is
uneven, daring, disgusting to read.
Neatly, the page is folded. The poem
is put below the big thrift shop dictionary.
It won’t be found for generations.
There is a poem from the ten-year
old, neatly written on aging writing
paper form the Lab School. It reveals
the most, still a puzzle. There is a hole,
some loneliness, a question phrased
in lyrical images of cricket songs.
