COUNTRY MUSIC


She was cardiac
With integrity, and light,

Soulless angel . . .

People stood around the scene
Throwing gum wrappers
Into the quarry

“Is that, like, a badger?” a man
Wearing a cowboy hat said

I sometimes sit apart

The pond where she drowned
Shimmered in the dusk like a tuning fork . . .

It keened darkly

Oh, please, and with your hands still touching the animal's shoulder

Time gets a little focused

Whittled down to the edges of things . . .

Where the noose should have been
The cops found only a harp

They found no drugs

Bread crumbs in a circle under the moon in the driveway . . .

You could tell the boyfriend was upset with the fish
Who just kept swimming
And looking around . . .

I remember my grandmother,
How her eyeglasses turned opaque

While she over-salted the meat

That was in London

Every lament had an open window for purchase

Outside of town, in the dark English countryside
There'd been talk that a year-old gelding

Had had a stroke

And yet continued to stand

“It doesn't matter if we were broken up,” the boyfriend screams

The moon is humming over the dirt road

It's hard to know what
To do with one's face

And now here come the crows