"a song about Jesus the stoop-shouldered man"
More Perihelion:
Bob Sward's Writer's Friendship Series
Mix Tape for Valentine, Nebraska
i. First the clatter of the last four bowling
pins: the svelte mechanical arm
that rights them, like crated eggs,
precise and white-bellied: pitcher of beer
on the table: I retie my shoes: outside:
the humid night: insects flock
a dusty halo on the Exit sign:
ii. loose bulb and radio static: windows
down all the way to the farmhouse:
wind against teeth: down the back road
where no new mailbox isn't smashed:
a fist through the night: moving:
iii. a song about Jesus the stoop-shouldered man
sings all day on the corner: toy guitar
on his knee: his voice struggling the ship
out of a long necked bottle:
iv. splint of blackthorn under my tongue:
the taste of blue and green and copper:
noon and the mail comes, three bills
and a postcard I read twelve times:
the shadows all sound different here:
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