One summer morning, boy,
in green cowboy hat,
waits at his bedroom window
for the thing that haunts him
Outside
butterflies swim sunshine,
trees rattle and sway
as though they have no bones
Cottonwood fluff drifts waywardly,
wind moves mournfully through grass;
sky becomes so vague
he fears he will never reach it
Boy fingers
his closed pocket knife,
waits all day until the moon,
cold and lifeless as the stone it is
brings him to his feet
with an unthinkable thought:
maybe nothing is, nothing,
and never will be;
the monstrous shape he imagined
will never come, never
Like grass, he is doomed
forever to stand still
Ignoring the sour breath of August
he curls under blankets and pillows,
wraps himself against the frost
of his own fear
At daybreak, a man rises
from an antique bed, shucks
a carapace, stretches hairy legs
and stalks a doleful house
He peers through blinds
into autumnal lace,
flinches at the cries of crows
rising into ghostly oaks,
frowns to regain an image
so distant he can’t conceive
of how he came to this moment
or will come to its other
Frantic, he dresses in overcoat,
muffler and cap,
a creature with worn wings
beating against winter
in search of a boy in a green
cowboy hat, suspenders,
western boots and red kerchief,
pocket knife aimed at the sky