A catch of denim streaking on the ground

To serve its multipurpose family: bluegrass?

A zarf to mow; a terrier to coif, or two,

Enchained behind the crosslink-comfort

That comports with the enchanted cortisol

And Mormon-tea. The rootin’-tootin’

Tomatillo brings a slipshod anger to this

Happy system like the naked dead, and

Chicken wire scrapes the Hippocratic

Terriers when others on the sidewalk

Pass to see the denim bulge, exciting in

The possibility of exiting enacted or

Akin to flowers in the doctor’s orifice.

No weir is this. No ermine to keep out,

Though weirdly, nowhere is kept in:

The laundry’s blowing on the line but

All the trees are still; the ravens leave

The yard off-color, polluted by its

Pulmonary tract; the light has a deep

Malt complexity and shine of roasty

Sweetness, different from the smooth

And hearty blue above. Inhaling Earth’s

Innate, ubiquitous descriptors, weir

It’s not: this fence is the yard’s baleen.

That corner’s primrose, blending in

With mania’s Kremlin conscientiousness

And cinder blocks, betrays a milky

Chorea in its endeavor, and – you didn’t

Hear it from me – flirtatiousness that,

If he were here today, would spur Chris

Wren to utter, “Her face foreshadows fire.”

That spot is just an ulcerated epitaph

For someone disowned by their parents,

Next to the cardboard cowboy silhouette

And wind chimes. And mania is out of

Breath on her radical sabbatical, like Adam

Naming all the flies before they’re zapped

On the patio; that anaerobic business of

Naming. Primrose speaks a cursive vim!

That tomatillo nuzzles stripped piano wire

Nudging back to drain the basic romance

From their vulgar sinus. A salamander dips

Into an open carpet cleaner bottle; nip slip

For the pampas grass that quickens with

A rattlesnake or deadly priapism. Leeward

Sides of dog turds proffer bugs that golden

Hall where all the echelons are fused,

According to some northern bumpkins.

The salamander spills the blues that stay

The news onto this denim oversight,

And scampers off uneaten like the night.

Rules schmules! the tomatillo seems

To say to shotgun shells of isolated red

In need of salvo from above. From their

Perspective, gutted Jeeps and nearby

Squabs withdraw from history’s bank

In the economy of God: “A crime more

Organized than teeth! If he were here

Today, Old FDR would have them all

In arrogant arroyos for the gulag, or

The incorruptibility below.” A shiny

Loss of life and proof of poof nearby:

A garden slug in carpet cleaner like a

Tar pit absent stuff to do. A pair of baby

Shoes are dangling from the power line

Above; now I’m not one to gossip, but

It seems an Oxford comma in the sky.

The tree that toured the torrents, routed

Rhetoric and tore the rutting wind

From rotting hours, strangles wasted

Air above redundant training wheels.

A couple empty beer cans triage Wiffle

Balls and shuttlecocks behind a menopausal,

Lovesick reindeer not plugged-in. The

Tomatillo, if it could, would ask, Who made

You? The subwoofer, off the record,

Always answers, Death, et al. A donnish

Disrespect is diving in the kiddie pool,

Deflated by the bird bath with a clownish

Sculpture of a boy that might be Helen’s

Son and lover; all those good, forgotten

People. Post-traumatic stucco limns

The stout conceit. A switchblade set

To circumcise is buried under California

Tags, expired and expiring like tomatillo

Seeds at Machu Picchu. Retired near

The porch and trash bins, satellite

Dishes smile at the way they’re piled

Like the autoicon of a teacher or farrago.

A terrier – the white one – sniffs the air;

The mayonnaise thunderhead and

Cirrocumulus horchata. And the chicken

Clucking only draws her nephew and

A F.U. in her immaterial miasma that

A terrier – the black one – duly will mistake

For his morass. Vicariously moping by

The flagpole: wind too vain and varicose

To muster a reply. A sense of the refined

Immensity is written on the flag in a morose,

Helminthic plasma that, if she were here

Today, would cause that great beauty

Jean Goodsprings to mistake this for a new

Diaspora; more good, forgotten people.

The sawgrass, slatternly as slogans of

The door-to-door campaigners with

The neighbors or the cussing caribou

Far north of here, is canvas where the earth

Was painted with claret behind the shed.

(A man from Kansas selling sloe gin

Used to live here. And a Caribbean woman

Selling dreams of Valparaiso to the bored

And boreal adventurers.) The salamander

Scampers from the sawgrass, and with

Quiddity he bids the rattlesnake to smell

His finger. “Your wish is my command”:

The rattling pituitary gland. If filtering

Our scruples, a pellucid, helpful data less

Polemical and mandarin, more C. elegans

And piccolo, emerged like that RV –

Christened ‘Pecos Bill’ and jacked above

The concrete cracked like sunflowers

Screamed Abso-fucking-lutely at the sun

From underneath it – then the Cheerio of

New nostalgia from this yard, like incense

Or a mea culpa’s covenant with rancor,

Would agree with the primrose and myself

That beauty is possessed by death and

Death possesses all: Ciao bella from

The locusts to Rubella; all in fields 

Of endless candles. And nunchaku struck

By the tomatillo. Don’t forget its busted

Chain’s unhealthy synecdoche among

The mesa, masonry and miso soup deniers,

With love letters that grandmothers tossed

Behind the shed like snakeskin, made this

Yard an Ararat and kitschy Nazca line – a

Trigger drawn just like a square hung up

In kitchens near Trafalgar – begging

Bless this Messianic Mess.