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A Ticket to Scrawl

As some repose on the sly,
why, the thicket is full again.

And I believe I balance on this scale.

Night plays more than toys themselves to me,
though you won't remember
in a harbor drawn by tugs.
There is plenty of room for me,
love as well. I'm the broomstick, not the closet.
Self-employed. The end and beginning of a period.

Occasionally a finer thread frays possibilities,
a wig you might as well wear.

This vacation will be my memory:
a highlighted triptych whose round trips make slides
but rub out the frigid burglar, ensconced
in blame at the top of the form.
He peers into the mist of country tears
and pulls the shade on sunlight and happiness, like dusk.

After all, he is the obvious scavenger.

But when the corn is knee high and your mother
is well, and the rain is no longer rude, then
search your scrapbook for bundled envelopes
sent to you from where, untamed like crude.

We blank on who was at the window.
Could've been a neighbor passing by.

Now his buckle draws attention
from the rest, but generally we agree
on how fun it was, how the ticket stubs
smile in line. We are inclined to remain.

There's a scrap more here than the scanner
expects, a book screaming at its cashier: now and then
we'll belt out anything.

Afterwards the hunt is less congenial;
no one stops to get wet
no one moves to sing.