2 Poems

Tis a Mean and Dirty Little Town

Nana says of Louisville, Kentucky,
home of the sorghum molasses
and melted butter on cornbread, the barefoot
kids running down the hill:

Say, who do you belong to?

No one

The brick reds, the blue tune Poppy played
on guitar in the folding chair, The Fox,
his favorite:

The fox went out on a chilly night,
he prayed to the moon to give him light

Hummingbirds needle-beaking into sugar water
feeders hanging high against the chalk barn,

the broken windows, the rolling trains
blaring morning horns, that wake us up

before we leave for the highway, walled
with scales of slate, green limestone sinking
into the earth (that’s why they call it blue grass):

For he’d many a mile to go that night
Before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o

The naked tress standing tall with dozens of arms
outstretched that say: it is good to get lost

Bird Watching

Throw the bones again, please,
an honest augury.

Margo the Bone Reader says: an eagle will fly
over you.

Clouds crawl; tangled sheets across the sky,
shared palms show lettered lines
typeset & taut.

See:
a red tailed hawk, a king vulture,

a boeing 777.

You run to follow, to find their end,
but falter among the pile
of blue-blood branches that knot
and fork like raven feet.