Repeal of the Leash Laws

Now, in the scattering layers of early October,
when the browning sun strings its staffs
in the tart smoke, I cannot sing
except as grackle or sprung radio: not the shush
of ground water from my artesian home,
fisting the shale for the clear leap,
nor the hesitant leak of color from the deep-browed oak.

Sometimes, still, a dream shakes this chemical meat
that I have bonegathered, a clear, clerical lust.
Sometimes I lay down all variety on the vanity
and step barefaced into the gravity
of a woman's whole, trembling attention,
folding into better uses of our sad, beautiful presence.
So I sang, and will again. Now her leafpile sweater
opens its wings from moth air.
Her skintan sparks and crackles as she stands
on the corner, hugging the chill of her shoulders.
The bus exhales beside her.
This is poetry on the buses.

It may be that knuckling the doors in cause
of snail darter or the relocation of trees
is worthy of this fitful passion. God, I had meant
to stay upwind of these sour passions to be right,
these politicos with the glaring third eye.
What are the long oaken thoughts to which our hustings
must seem cicada? The snail darter may have dived
to glories we long heads will never know,
watching these little scythes spin
madly on our wrists.

Wind up the short leash, master of the waterbowl
and table scraps from which we conjure
the rich table, steaming originally.
Accept our barks and howls from the backyard,
from the little chained houses you made
for our conjecture of humanness.

Sometimes, in this blowing season, in the surprise
of water crackling, we rise up a little
to look in through the windows and mirrors
of our master's house. We strain to see the lights
and hear the other music before the great oak shudders
and casts away its faces and beliefs,
before the grave snow takes all the colors.
Wherever I walk, I leave behind me
blurred footprints.