underfoot, like the penultimate chapter
in a mirage: red paper lanterns, moth dust,
chalk rings around shadows on the street.
_Raw_ was the consumptive nihilist's name.
He kept saying he'd been alive for so long shoeboxes felt like rain from the other side
of town. I could never tell when he was lying or simply destined to own an earthworm
segment, the fifth heart intact. And here, porchlight has a greenish meniscus:
the meridian, the shape-shifting glass eye, that lump of roadkill beside the fender dent.
The whole time he's been missing,
it is autumnal between the two elms
with the hammock curved like a spoon,
fishnet. A tossed coin whirls twice
in the air-an elliptical moment-
and it slips inadvertently through my fist.