Like Smoke I Drag

the use of birds is not metaphorical
cobwebs and a doorknob
out there the wind hurts the leaves to the ground
I see words in the night after tomorrow
two tomatoes and a cabbage
pale smoke lofting over the clergyman of my youth
I’m not even half a century old
who says the window’s clean and the cast is
in ecstasy if I could swallow
my testicles and a reflection from a medusan garden
I trade my free will in elevators
which is why I live for the week ends
scarecrow in the apple tree
a red and white table cloth stretched into constellations
the birds come back and I can tell
they are sparrows or cardinals or maple leaves or crows
about the shoe repairs of the world
as it grows in the backrooms of my intuition
the music almost unnoticeably fading out
like a row of streetlights at dawn
the ceramic spanish-dancer in a flourish
just walking down I pass through
orgasms like a glowworm in the shadows of the freeway