FEBRUAR

Day shines, is    broken 
  angled and wild   
rats wear their     nun hats  
  drunk in their dreams

Summer hides without  rue 

  
        * * *

Deer, off   their mark, sum  
  their hearse of     tears
ending such   long nights

You long to go  with us
  with all the signs 
watching  your son  for an unmistakable trace 
  of the hearse singing 
of the end,   reaching  to go away


        * * *

Time is coming  when  
  a bear will die

It is an absolute   wharfing of night
  the curtain’s pause,  the new zoos
of shapes and knots   
  and too many  mock tigers 
who, beside   the forest’s loose punks,   sink
  life-rafts over     words 


        * * *

This winter is  
      ochre for diesel,
  a gross wild unsure 
wooden heart    a sparkling godlike 
  tee-shirt biting the 
groaning whining, standing 
  with stingers 

  Sick below the snow deck, freshly halted
and swiped away, no   
  aspen’s under rind    lifts free 
of mittens  or golden odors
  lifts free of 
the greasy beams    of—


        * * *

What rings 
  the stubbed beast, citing a bear
to see past   such a fool   as months 

  You who was
freezing, a wild 
  gerund, retching, who
are you testing?


        * * *

  Beginning,  the day springs 
forth beauty and never minds how
  fast war lights
    
    In this wise 
  middle phase, words go  under water
into the ruins of pathos 
  where   a whiff   of larvae 
unearths  a sound