"I've got a lot of everything to give"

    said the skeleton
   of the tree
   planted in the loom of
   lonely loamy soil,
   with the eyes like
   metal plates glinting in
   the pale moonlight,
   fixated on past tenses
   and garden shears.


   I say the devil disappeared,
   when you came to town,

    with your swamp gas
    gas lights lighting
    your path to crooked
    stilted
   calves with
   unsure feet
        and wild eyes;
   you were the doe,
and he was the
   buck,
   and
   now
   you're
   stuck going to
                                   community college and
                                                                 you hate that shi-
   --"sibilence"

   "what?"
    "sib-i-lence. That's the word you
         were looking for."

   "oh";
   a flick of the finger,
   finger flicked off,

   she asked me where time would go

    so I said I didn't know.













   "I'm a mountain"

   said caralee,
   the skeleton of the tree,
   to me.