What do you know of thresholds?
The gazebo, sullied by amber casings
The river reloading- some chapped hasty wish.
As we make hollow points regarding
potential shotgun weddings. this spring stay
in borrowed rooms. smoking dope near tiki bars
In tattered sweaters or baby blues
where we drink, then argue like cicadas
or bluegrass kahunas in spending monsoons.
Impending cocktail bankruptcy, our well read friend
(whose theory absolves, leaving praxis quiet lacking) avoids
the gaze of the trash divers with razor precision.
while dueling pianists refuse our requests
“Fly Me to The Moon”, not immune to our heckling,
each hike brings us closer to killing our friends.
summits, tripping, pushes, kicks- the chapel on
the west mountain, scheming-
licking both our sawdust lips
Greyhound
Like the first strand of a golden spiral
a compact Talladega of taught bulging ribs
whose beating heart, half buried under puppy mill trauma
is tried further by the buoyant mass of white cotton
sparking around the track.
Some think ‘rabbit’ others hope ‘mother’.
to be a bullet in the canine revolver,
to bet it all on Hercules and yelp in grief.
To watch them pave over the track, rig up plywood
strawberries, facades, with twelve kennels circling the sky
forming the ellipsing eyes of some metal archangel.
Borrowing- as all religions do, the hog race announcer
speaks to you in tongues from behind the plywood podium.
You bet it all on Hambo
and still you lose.