Sleep and Death Used to Work as a Team

When the gods asked them,

When your corpse was clean

And good to go, then

They came and got you

And flew you on home,

Not just one of them,

Not just Sleep or Death,

But both, pas-de-deux,

The rest and the null,

Your ride come for you.

Think on this. Who first

Thought of the slain flesh—

Killed, stripped, claimed, and washed

Fresh as a dish, wiped

Clear—as still in need

Of more aid from Death,

Not to say mere Sleep?

Such a thought’s a wish

To be out of this,

To pull the corpse free

Of the next and next

Lives that will rise, feast

And die from that flesh.

Gods, if Sleep and Death

Could free flesh from next!

Fall Turns Black and White

Trout breathe pearls in the night’s black creek.
The moon is a moth on the waves.

The snow that fell to melt sprouts ice,
And here and there a white patch stays.

The oak twigs click and shine with lights
That can’t be traced back to a source.

Mule deer move herds of shades on shades
Through the fields that fenced the white horse.

It’s still fall in the sky. The dawns
Still drift south. The trout will sink soon

As the snows pile. The deer will nest
Best they can. No moths then. Just moon.