Possum stares us down moon-eyed.

There is space enough for each event to be it's own signifier.

Wait long enough. something always emerges whole.

Ants cluster around a dead grasshopper like scavengers stripping the valuable metals from a broken down factory.

Bright yellow pollen in a dirty cobweb catches a glimpse of itself, reflected in a memory of jellybeans spilled on a dusty road (some other time, somewhere far away).

Wild packs of family dogs patrol the grid.

and the dust in the floorboards and the grass spits crickets.

heaps of bricks.

The deep howl of freight trains, those wise old guards.

blueberry pancakes.

An ancient tractor, it's gearbox like an old fashioned puzzle.

cicadas, coyotes, flies, an orgy of insects. moths litter the lamps. their small purple hearts a pulp locked in a dusty bulb.

Shrieking and then

in the morning

clumps of raccoon fur in the grass.

oatmeal for breakfast.

The printing press, it's cast iron muscles ever waiting for the word, a cool thought drawn up in sticky black ink, anything to flex.

rat in the basement. bat in the barn. swollen ankles. Worms (6 miles). an overgrown toy rocket ship.

a milkweed seed pod on the window-ledge, it's belly bursting with it's wind borne babies.

I am taking apart old habits, in this air they are brittle and break away effortlessly in my hands.

wrecked cars heave with spiders.

tiny red birds in the walls. tracks.

the field washed gold after a summer of so much panic in the grass.

Possum, bloodied and resigned, heaves a breath, bares its gums, peeks through it's disguise, it's fake death.

We go out to the abandoned ammunition storage facility. there are miles of bunkers. A dead dog surrounded by packets of insecticide.

A small black snake watches us change the flat tire. (the horizon is fire.)

Driving back we are mostly quiet. it is simple silence. owl feathers on the dashboard. No sign of the usual devices. The habitual apparatus of "do you love me or not do you do you do you". These are obsolete manuals for storm navigation. If there is hurt it is just hurt. If there is contentment it is just contentment. there is friendship there is friendship. Forget weltshmerz and forget belly lizards. dogger, finisterre. it means nothing here. I made a new compass and placed a joy at it's magnetic center.

To sleep close together.

To be grateful.

To be boiling. bitten.

filthy. freezing.

Our struggle is shared with everything else on the land.

And there is an absolution in that.

full moon/ blood moon/ moon streaked and waterlogged/ moon: a hysterical white bird on a black lake/ moon: a hot loaf of bread/ moon: a watermelon hacked to pieces with his grandfathers axe, its saskatoun wood handle engraved with his name/ popcorn moon/ moon: a severed finger, spills a glut of skyblood on the ploughed mud/ moonrise in the empire of small scrambling beasts/ moon, I am learning new ways to love old things.

What will become of these rooms when we are not there to kick up the dust. will they ache for us the way I ache with love.

I can't tell.

but in spring. a pulse. in spring. a swell.

the tick of new calamus on crushed eggshell.

The well, the well, the well, the well.