Turbulence troubles the drain pipe, like fear’s quick wings in the belly—a fence swift, the same I’d freed weeks beforefrom his Rubbermaid chamber, his stump nowabsolute, ghost limb of an old soldier, finding ways
to bear his ghost pain. He’d hobbled out, lingered there by the gate,cowed like a man in a cheap suit, mustering dreams of volition, pondering his state, how he got there,so unprepared for the kids armed with crickets,
and worse—curiosity. How eager they were for the ambush, the flick of his tongue’s snap back like a carpenter’s tape, making the case for premeditation, evil’s clean seed pit, soonthey said, imagining speech bubbles, whole narratives, whole
theaters of feeling, ordaining each other lizard bard,lizard diviner, skink sibyl, the glass eyeball of future still murky. The truth is: he never performed, never confirmed one of their dreams, their interest withered
like a spent balloon, was mourned less. And when he hobbles away, such evident wreckage—I will absolve, will let them forgettheir tethering (to ourselves, to our God), that could we escape,would be another kind of loss. Children, let us burrow together
into the neck of nature, believe every wounded thingcan summon a theory of green, some idea of itself,and start over.
