Slathered with well-bottom darkness, the stink
of this slide is my hanker, my haunt, my harrow
and a monkey moon loose in the night is
my rancor, my road-spent, my rising.
I should be inviting the angels on telephone poles
who beckon with pinwheel eyes,
but instead my fingers worry these rook-eyed
beads. They’re my hammer and hesitation.
When it seems there’s no light in this
dimming world, and only a small window
burns in a house too far, it’s not those
angelic songs humming in wires
where I find my baggage, my bootstrap,
my backbone, but inside this gut-strung yowl.
Someone once told me, from the bottom
of a well, you can see stars in daylight.