False Season

Here put a piece of something nice
& here a bone, some gristle.

For contrast. For what matters.

Down by the lake sunlight dazzles.
An anxious mother shades her eyes,
skinny kids on an oil-can raft squeal
and leap into the sweet blue.

In the woods dark creatures
stop in their tracks before moving on.

It takes a killing heart
to get done what needs doing
in this world.

I remember listening to your guitar
in the long hours, smoking,
saying nothing.

It was a way you had.
Nobody could touch that.

Now toward dusk blackbirds take wing,
The screen door slams, a glass shatters,
a woman runs out to the dogwood tree,
a man’s voice rings in the sky
like the crack of a rifle.

Where would you be in all this,
had it gone different
from the way it did.

It’s no way
of telling now.

Listen to the birds—

how they make harsh music, a glad
noise in the ashen sky.



(This poem is upcoming in Weber Studies' next issue.
Thanks, guys.)