Hitching: 1968 

     Easing their spines on post-marked
ends of property, the road-worn   

      sag, sink, recall or forget some other lives    
in meaner contexts, 

     a bag or bedroll dropped, just far enough
a moment’s rest comes easy,     

     even this blow-by yes,  as January  
tears toward 

     narrower, narrowing
paydays     

     and     new
cycles. 

     Two like yourselves maybe, between    
refreshment and live music, 

     consider their heated lives, in sweats    
and markless courtshoes, 

     unable to speak a word of this, but    
sharing their taste 

     for speed, for the candied fruit
they pass, 

     slipping by the cruisers, for this
once upon a time                                                       

     they confuse with sanity,
their futures, 

     depending,     as
these
    will… 

               *

     Not on this snow, snow-fencing, no, and
not on the scraps,
    scrub, on these hints of wheat,
spring, or electronic 

     calendars, but on this truce of sorts two build,
remembering    
    nights at home, the neighbors
with guitars 

     and combs and squeeze-box instruments,
with ballbats
    and marked score-cards, but not
a diamond 

     anywhere, only such looks as troubles
specialize,
    flashing through snow, through
this snow, 

     falling for now, and  
any
    where. 

               *

     Two like yourselves, let’s say, schooled  
by extremes,                                                                 

     search clouds like resignations passing over,
like catalogs 

     of known facts, starting the star-gazers,
ballplayers in, mid-sentence 

     in, so that a room seems everything, and
the scarves ( ripped off ) 

     accessories all over, fires they burn
and burn again, 

     until the bags, the bedrolls bid,
until two stand, 

     stretch, setting the tones
for days,    

     and the tones for
dreams
    ahead. 

               *

     So long as this fine-blow eases some,
eases to dawns     

     seen through the thumbprint sides
of emptied 

     goblets, through lifetimes then, like breath    
the breathless 

     take apart in neutral corners, they’ll
wait, until 

     winds again allure, and tracks
of their own                                                                                           

     appear, then     — just
as cleanly — 

     make     to
vanish.

Remembering Nam, the vets, the regulars
who did not come back.

     Hadn’t the flutes     fragrances     the seasons drawn
in pencilled lines and Telemann     / the fathers
                 in smoky yards     / the villages dressed like Halloween
been scares enough to him     / the sky-high flames
     arranged in drumspeak and guitars     /  in these notes
let loose to play their tricks on cornering?  He thinks
     of the names for wildbloom     / of the stack-fires nights
The Sanity shuts down     — sorting the ashes left     
     when     Time     itself     caves in     — rubbing     away
the midnight volumes and dark stars.  So    what
     if the coffee tastes     like     someone’s cleaning recently?  
So what if the whole sky’s changed    — the faces
     of men besides themselves     — the music that gave him
creeps     the more     he assumed     the dalliance —
     here     where the green had overgrown     / the hard rains
satisfied     — composing     a mind     so local
     it could pick the bonnets out?  For     all     of that rolled
and     odd-sized     stuff     — for     all     the exotic stuff     
     he’s only guessed the use for     — he’s seeing the bodies
off     — 1968     — their     wallets     as empty     
     as stuck beasts     — the bodies lost     in     mis-alloying
daylight     — holding     the future      out to him —
     lost in the blue     and bluer liberties     they’d sighed for.  
And     here     — where     the berries were     / where
     the moonlight     — slipping on bright gourds     — repeats     
the same first names     and     the white noise
     of their erasures     — he samples the lanes     / blue lanes     
/ the summer-to-autumn lives      imagined lives
     had     strained     to figure     — eased     by     the lovely
walk of horns     — and lost in domestic heat —
     in this foam     the moonlight poured     and settled in —
bringing these hearts around     — with     nothing
     glamorous     to to tell you      — and these hearts      
brought home     — to songs     in the old style —
     measured and licked     by     midnight     
          comics and street priests.

               *

     The sheriff’s hobnailing the porchboards asking in.  And
the basework’s stretched for lengths of beltways

     / capitals.  They’re     sending     the bodies     / brothers out —
as if our lives were practice runs     — arranged

     in swaggering trombones     / in the basework’s innocence.  
So     to     the tug-nosed barges     threading river light

                                                          
     and     to      the tongues of steam     — playing     the grounds
behind The Sanity and Three Crown Barbecue     — this

     mumbled and low somewhat     — chasing the demons off –
naming the quarrels stirred and national betrayals.  Even

     the dark implodes.  Even     this cabby     — drunk and racing
on his guide-star     — screams     the words     to him –

     repeats the words for him     — closing down the century –
remembering the news     and     months-straight

     news     and     absences.  Families     ( 1968 )     and versions
of families like events     — getting the hang of sleep

     in how many different bedrooms.  Tonight     — on this bridge
done     lavender     / this bridge     done     robin’s egg –

     as early as action is     — as ornery as light     / as action is –
he sees how some men pour out themselves     — moved

     by these turns of light     — sees how some children walk –
come out for smoke or exercise     — remembering

     the pants pressed crisp     — the rubbed     horse-muscle
ambitions traded on     — and     any Thursday

     but his own     — the tastes     of     domestic heat —
inviting     such ends     to dreams –

     ends to the heat made up in common beds
and a shared breakfast.

               *

     He feels     / he tastes the domestic heat      — toasted
with Clark’s tonight     
or some other local hooch.  And all the important
visiting    — as early as action is    
/ as early as this last glow     — settled
on rusty limbs and over the beanfield dissonance —
and     over     these     same     
dark-haired or tow-head sensitives     — spooked
and taking numbers     
on themselves     — over the blocks     
with     best intentions
taking tenths.

     But what can they tell him after all     — as     early
as action is     — come     home
as they have     across deep space     — dulled     
by the ends     of     night-travel
/ dulled     by     the roars     of night travel —
as     they     invented it  —
remembering the ruins and interviews —
1968    — the kiosk dreams
/ beneath      
the many billboards’
promises?

     This morning the light’s day-lit by the Victoria Hotel —
the fog’s day-lit     — wrapping
The Sanity around and the Three Crown Barbecue —
shrouding the barges     / stacks      
and  all this stacked-on
     genesis.

     And here’s this librettist wintering     — but
lacking the speech     to call that back     
/ to explain the literature     — tipping his stingy brim
to them     — to the wait-staff
well before they’ve leaned and stretched a stitch –
breath-taking     / discrete     — and
to these old men sniffling     — remembering
the bridges     above the sea
and tunnels running under     / the dreams      
like tongues of flame      
and     tongues of flame      — like
a confession     — let go
he thinks    for cheap     / let
go     for     give
     -away.

     So much for his own post-graduate and sensuous     
slug-fests.  So much     for a cousin’s
company     / for     the dreams     made new     
or     stiffened     by arrivals     / for     
the dark     — split wide —     the fog split wide
and sound enough for him     / the
parlors alive with domestic heat     — bedrooms     
and bunks     — as     bunks
were then    — Time’s spoils     —  the ways     
he thinks of them     — and
kitchens     as out of touch     – hot     
as the kitchens seemed
to him     — alive     in their own     
mulled wines
and     recipes     for
hard sauce.