I keep freedom under my belt, I say, this is for the little people.
With a taunt and shallow plush smile, I have read a book that will keep
oranges that bright aluminum and poets amongst trucks fretting
in that neighborly way. He might say,
you are looking for a stray dog beneath straw light.
I, however, want to hold up a candle in a philosopher's coat
and with a beard to scratch,
account for all misguided phantoms in the shadow, carry a silver buckle
and a manly fat stomach, salute the orange grove, and ask the marines.
With freedom under your belt, he might say, the stench is wicked,
the dogs are wicked this time of night. I bar the door. He rubs his eyes.
We have never seen geese as white this early.
The quantitative methods for business are sung out the window in late spring
when one receives letters and packages,
identifies the neighbors dog with a smile.
We leave a note to the traffic cop, this an imagined car, it is a shiny bright red.
There are lilies near the park. The woman laughs who so dearly wants
the woods to be a deep thicket, a blue night.
Paper work is not for the survivors, it is for the hunter, lifting the pen to
the prey, down after the kill. I am willing to sacrifice only the little of the
remainder of ink,
persistence is for the cute animal, the cat, or the stuffed bear.
Manufactured, I send you little of me, I do not take pleasure in busy tasks.
I tremble. You are a ghost. I ask you, what can a dollar bill mean
to a pack of jackals in early autumn or spring or what have you.