Séance in Subiaco, Arkansas
(after C.D. Wright)


Bayonet he sang
                                        Persimmon she said

Mule foot he said
                                        Celadon she sang

Warbler the man sang
                                        Bristlecone she said

Star Apple he said
                                        Tupelo she sang

Perineum he sang
                                        Revolver the woman said

Balconette one said
                                        Yellowjacket the other sang

Petrichor he sang

                                        Francis she said

Carolyn he said

                                        Silence they said

Do Not Drive into Smoke

I remember that red house over yonder,
the only house in the trailer park

in those Speak & Spell days, those Dig Dug weeks—
those years of watching Martha Quinn

from a waterbed. That house had a cellar,
lightless, dingy, that smelled like pond mud,

like cigarette butts floating in a bucket
of rainwater. Smell transfigures to sound,

and the little symphonies from childhood
synesthesia through my mind—the girl-group

tunes from the sixties. Sometimes there’d be
a tambourine on the final snare,

and today the reverb calling back
these things—the red house over yonder.

There’s smoke on the highway up ahead.
I ignore the sign and drive right through.

I’ll make you so proud of me, I hear.
It’s coming storms ahead, a net

of writhing fish in my heart.
I look at the burning field as I pass.

A horse, a mare, it’s Oklahoma.
it’s cold and the mare’s wearing a blanket.

Exact Change Pantoum

I followed loss through the forest and crossed fields
as far as they could take me. I had my head
in the bees, watched mosquitoes smack the windshield
like spit wads on a blackboard, I wasted all my breath.

As far as they could take me, I had my head
in night clouds, and behind them years, dulled stars,
like spit wads on a blackboard! I wasted all my breath
trying not to lose it, smashing guitars

in night clubs, and behind them beers—dulled stars—
and the disemboweled melodies clanged.
Tried not to lose it, my totaled car,
and kept moving on a road requiring exact change.

And the disemboweled melodies clanged
in my ears, and the years unrolled, unwound, unreeled,
shook apart on a road that demanded I change.
I followed loss through the forest and crossed fields.