Apr 11, 2011
For a gray Monday
Our parties awkward, our names
stupid, our sex lame, our families
accumulate in the trees their ghosts, buzzards
in the cypress or grackles in the bamboo, to shoot
bottle rockets at. We don't need this shit,
but I'd rather live with racket than divest
my anatomy to a couch. I used to lie
across the tracks, or in weeds
on dry earth. I don't try to sustain
myself by deflecting what returns
its beak to my skull, but survival evolves
ecstasies outside the uses of angels.
I do not dream. I just
watch fields burn, or ride
in cars that won't get anywhere.
I suppose the mind's own place
offers no heaven.
from Matthew Henriksen's "Corolla in the Midden," in Ordinary Sun