Four Snakes Makes Our Flag

Four Snakes Makes Our Flag

rut humkeyhole where the quiet in me went lake where I said                thank you the first spider lily a matchstick dusk us overdog dizzied with fireflies as you say it     doom        it doesn't mean my neck but my hands     will or whippoorwon'tmirror you wrapped in the bedsheet and punched all    your eyes inside         ramified stunned it comes with the landlike the snakebite in a matter of time                actually the heart is a lonely harp     in the graininessof the photo I can see how much I despised the absence                that made me        scared of the hunger I have now and the waysit'll have me             mistaken for a man     a matter of verb                tense what the kitchen table can't take its chipped yellow paintI barely know the men who sat there every morning while the stars wept what?

Four Snakes Makes Our Flag

the man who raised me had hands, isn't thatenough? one war is already two hundredyears behind us and still its chirpless bulletsrise with the rain like reluctance to faith—

                        past all the wildflowers punctuation makes                a priority of past tense. evening dew. the scar                in my eyebrow curves like a little moon [ ( ]

made of your memory. we tore downthe church and someone came for the doors.as above, southern bellow. so in the bellyof the whale of you to slick your hair back

                        with sweat. love, the chapel window of my heart                        depicts you. your halo of ivy and scuppernong,                        around your neck swooned gnats necklace.

Four Snakes Makes Our Flag

–forest fire gold-damned the moss'd blue torsoa matter of moment we mistake it for a choppedtree we mistake each other for how twilight feelsthe car rolled until it looked like a crushed soda canI was thinking of the gardens that spring centurieslater from burnt acres how anyone could be a kingthere sad and blue as they become you thoughtthe daisy patch was single minded I only agreedbecause your hair moved how hope moves notto be confused with the whitetail deer whose antler [ ( ]curled like a question mark in my hands I gaveit to my father and rainshower o'er the gravelthe road would be so lucky to have us both hereat the sky you said would you look at that [ ( ]

Four Snakes Makes Our Flag

enough crickets to shake down the treedown my road of sunflowers land mistakenlycalled mine         river that mingles the bonesof conquerors into the conquered     mercyleaves nothing time collapses into itand how you danced utter godspeed againI found you beautiful the rain is stillwest and by the time you hear this

I'll be soaked     I'm soaked now and stillon the phone with you my dove     and my down-rivered clothes     earthen-wearied totemwe'll be so many things     before we'llbe talked about softly         let's wrap into eveningwhile all these blackberries become our edges