The Wake

From the cleft of my
breast muscles
heart worms squirm
against the cool air—
swimming up like tadpoles bursting
from the hari-kari pores of the
mud toad’s back.
I detest the shocking horror
of a life within my own,
excreted merciless
to die,
a favored death
away, apart, alone,
than one allowed
within.
I run the afternoons through
corn fields,
jogging dirt packed
county roads, the sweat pours freely
from my muscles loose, my beaded
forehead burning
in the sun.
I dodge the
sink-holes, washboard tracks
and road kill, turtles cracking shell—
a dark red spot where the wheel
came and went
and left a bleeding
sun-dried wound.
I shake the thought,
and head for home, the dew dust
cooling on my arms,
I run the water cold and
stand alone, a naked,
dirty boy.
I scrub the inches of my
reachable self,
my inhabitable self where
roots might grow.
My house eviction now,
my pavement thin,
my garden made a grave.
I bleach the pockets
of my fertile earth and
pick the lint balls from the
crevassed rows,
I throw them to the wind.
I trim the tree limbs, bare and
shoulder hugged,
the feeder filled with seeds,
the birds come eagerly
and fly away, to store them
in the holes inside the
tough-barked, worm infested skin
of tall old
jack pine trees.