wild quarry
BY JEFFREY MORGAN
All the empire of nostalgia needs
is another person who cares
too much about birds.
In order to achieve
a certain American version of dignity,
I pull the hood over my head
because I don’t even know
whose falcon I am
or what hunting
today is,
today is
a tunnel,
a tunnel
for following
my breath around.
White sky like
the voice of our hoarse Lord.
Skinny trees like
some ribs the wind discarded.
I think all I want and then some.
I don’t know what I want
is the most honest thing I can say
to no one,
moving around the neighborhood
trying but failing
to outflank the divine.
At the top of the list of things
I’m not going to do today,
I’m not going to lie down
in this or that dead garden like a child,
parrot the word grave
a couple hundred times.
