dummy

the garden is draped off the back of the Allegheny
there goes the Monongahela
with the Ohio gaining strength
Miss Curtis hangs sheets
pinning someone else’s hopes now

it’s not in you, dear girl, here in the
year of the     anno domini     deux mille
cinq     the living, merely whole

beam benediction contradiction ecstatic blossom / the motion
hot stove electricity sawgrass out the back
escape hut, path, take a flower with you
for three days in spring     now,
swig this blue jug, stone jar, earth mason

but when they’re done with you they don’t tell you
Oh why in an ancient poem the living became song,
less atrophied skyline, more…

blue star

and they don’t tell you how to rest
or how the day descends
or how to have an idea

for all the south, when you wake the trees, they just don’t know,
they think you ought to go back there and adjust a limb
and that’s it: the sweet spot
nectar

but it’s no clearer than that
before it’s broken or held