Grass is green. Pigeons twitch by. Manx
cat or accident victim — lost it or never
had it? Incomer-vision crinkles like a wrapper
creases its subject: pink and purple stripes
tremble man-size on a line. The creeps that creep
into our bones at night and steal calcium
smell like heat treatments
and children. What does it help to hear of. At magical
distance, the steep town rises, green
boiling up between its points. Endurance and
escape orbit or trap each other like
components of an arthritic joint. So
chase them. So blame them.

The incomer could be explaining any
place whose tenants leave only to buy
poisons they can’t find at home.
The village burns attempts. Its best
days roll on the green all struggling
to get under an inch of the same
blanket at the same time, except
for the day gazing blankly from his stroller.