the iron lace highlights a corner of the edifice
catches a moonbeam, reflecting into the masked eyes
of a robber tiptoeing like a chorus dancer. a couple
clink glasses, filled with wine. the waiter hears
a feather floating to rest on terracotta.
on the street below a woman with a bun has departed
the gallery, towards the window of a man hardly known.
she wanders through a courtyard. frames with eyes
scrutinise footsteps. heels echo in the square. she glimpses
in the reflection an indistinct moon. another illusion.
a fat bald man jumps on a bus. she's obsessed
by that portrait and had read in the news
stories of post-war posturings, a curtain imposed by a rip.
romance in the window & she never witnessed dessert.
somehow in the city a forest of trunks hides
a power-blue sedan & a man with a gun. she can't remember
what she's done. her sister escaped with a bag
filled with notes. dull clues. a uniformed team takes
their cues. they talk to strangers. she doesn't often do that
unless in a shop, for an order, or a bank vault with her code.
the plot mechanically drawn like the woman by her easel
in her 50s frock, trying to convince the telescope
he's the one. a siren wails as she arrives at a different
streetscape, blinded as a gaslight catches
the diamond necklace of a different diner
with a man who may or may not be her betrothed.
she tried to call. no answer. where did Norman go? black birds flock
& swoop overhead, hardly noticed against fading stars

Death stirs all ways like the wind
like something getting up to go,

and like the wind death doesn't
leave anywhere alone,

but where it is he travels with
whoever take his guiding hand,

gladly will I wait until
                     I die to understand ..

I borrowed a bike from a haunted woman

a frog was asking me
what my mouth
had done

I was bound
for the orphan’s
shortcut

I always give that
fickle ***** Life one more chance,
for I love her so.

I found a skeleton of a bus
so far into the pines, I knew it had been
dropped from the sky, to save me  

they had to be far behind,
the other side of the stream, where those hounds
lost my scent    

Jed and Tonto didn’t follow me across
the shallows, and I’d bet all the money I ever stole
those curs and the posse ate them up    

there was almost half a moon, though
inside the bus was black; outside was freezing
drizzle pattering on the roof  

the coat I filched was soaked    
my trousers too--nobody told me
Alabama got this cold  

if they had
I wouldn’t have believed them
until that night  

I curled up in a ball
behind the driver’s seat, shoved
my frozen hands in my shirt    

then I heard that hiss, and saw
those eyes--I stayed quiet, more quiet even
than when I hid from John law    

then she growled, deep, slow
but I kept watching her eyes--emerald and still, still
in the place I first saw them    

then we were both silent  
I’d  *** my drawers before I’d move
freeze outside... get ate inside  

the hours passed fast; I drifted,
dreamed a little of being back inside, and woke
when the sun hit the cracked windshield    

she was still there
with two cubs nursing, now used to my smell
I suppose, since she didn’t jump  

when I slid down the bus stairs
into the frosty grass, where I saw a doe
chewing forbs, close to the roots  

lucky the lion had her babes stuck
to her teats, lucky I was between the cat and prey,
lucky the bus was in that grove