the dog sniffed at the tepid bed. Eley held

his head in his hands and wanted to cry,

but Beloved he wrote and forever and why.

Some men have no luck. Eley knew he’d as well

send her his ear as mail these stale words,

although he could taste her still. Nearby, a bullet

was there for the right moment and the right man.

He got out his gun, slowly, not even thinking,

and loaded it. Now he would choose. He paused.

He could finish the booze, sleep without dreams

with the morning to face, the loss of her

sore as the sunlight; or open his mouth

for a gun with his name on its bullet to roar

in his brains. Thunder or silence. Eley wished to God

he’d never loved. And then the frightened whimper of a dog.

Following Francis

Watch me. I start with a low whistle, twist it,

pitch it higher and thinner till the kestrel treads air.

There! I have a genius for this, which I offer

to God. Do they say I am crazy, brother?

Yes, they say that. My own wife said it. Dropping everything

and following that fool! You want to be covered

in birdshit? You make me sick. I left anyway,

hurried to the woods to meet him. Francis. Francis.

We had nothing. Later, I wept in his arms like a boy;

his hands were a woman’s, plucking my tears off, tasting them.

We are animals, he said.

I am more practical. He fumbles with two sticks

hoping for fire; swears, laughs, cups glow-worms

in his palm while I start up a flame. Some nights

we’ve company, local accents in the dusk. He sees

my jealousy flare beneath dark trees. He knows.

I know he knows. When he looks at me, he thinks

I cannot tame this.

This evening, Francis preaches to the birds. If he is crazy,

what does that make me? I close my eyes. Tell my children

we move north tomorrow, away from here where the world

sings through cool grass, water, air, a saint’s voice.

Tell them that what I am doing I do from choice.

He holds a fist to the sky and a hawk swoops down.

Survivor

For some time now, at the curve of my mind,

I have longed to embrace my brother, my sister, myself,

when we were seven years old. It is making me ill.

Also my first love, who was fifteen, Leeds, I know

it is thirty years, but when I remember him now

I can feel his wet, young face in my hands, melting

snow, my empty hands. This is bereavement.

Or I spend the weekend in bed, dozing, lounging

in the past. Why has this happened? I mime

the gone years where I lived. I want them back.

My lover rises and plunges above me, not knowing

I have hidden myself in my heart, where I rock