Roger Reeves

The deaf hear only in their dreams. I am sure

I can hear nothing. My how the mountain leaps

towards the sea and the little village below.

Who sang for the white plate my father tossed

at my sister’s shadow? What funeral is held

for a broken compass? When cutting onions,

leave a candle lit somewhere near an old man

holding his wife in a napkin. In the torn light of evening,

there is enough treason for everybody. Excuse me,

I should say something about the beauty of cranes.

Once in a sycamore I tossed a brick at a boy’s head.

It opened like the sea. I think I saw a crane.

A pink pill opens a gash in the snow. I dive in-

to the wound, recover what I can. My sister,

a pear tree split open by an early frost, creaks,

splinters, and gags each time I offer this bit

of un-honeyed balm to her tongue, her crow

mind. Look, I say, bring the dog here. My hand

opens. The horn-shaped pill falls into his mouth.

He swallows. A good dog. But neither of us are

good dogs. Neither of us have learned to swallow

on command. Creak went the sun. Creak went

the hinges of evening, my sister’s mouth opening

with a little pressure applied to her throat.

Be good and take this, I say. Be good. Take this.

And then, the clawed feet of something

akin to speech crawling across the half-moon

of my lip. I, red beetled and buzzed, come

crawling into bed tonight looking for the last

light of this evening’s rage in your hair. God,

how long the night trapped in the bottom

of a bottle thrown into a sewer or lodged

in a man’s dark hand? I am still holding the bird

I wrestled from the street lamp of your anger.

It is pecking at my palm. I cover its mouth

and the avalanche in its throat when I come

into the house so as not to wake you.

The fountain, in the square, is still broke.

It leaks like a man. I’ve said this before: I come

as the children came before the closed door

of Noah’s ark: to plead for water. To beg you stay.