duck [redux]

that day
the sky was smoky as
it gets in late November
and the creek
and the wind
were freezing.

I had produced nothing
that winter; I was still
trying to find myself.
Not to say
I felt out of place with me, just
there was no one else
with skin for smelting together.

When I was not thrashing
or carrying on, I was—
the house was stoned-
silent, as it was on that day.
I’d starved with little money,
no success, finally,
the hunt came out in me.
So I got up to find my pants
but never did.

the snow chased me
away and over mountains
and we did not stop for days
or nights.
a dandelion a thistle,
a down fatigue flare.
crash.

He came in the window,
knocked over my bamboo,
and ashes to the floor.
He lay still and the first thought was
there would be a feast that day.
But I found his slow rise and fall
so I brought him in and thought,
I was too lucky
and several times slapped my face;
I hadn’t had company in so long
or food for longer.

his scent stayed with me;
I had never been close enough
to one to know what they ate
and how it made them smell.
but he was pleasant
and cleaned himself sometimes;
slow, aloof, desperate and generous.

I never began to count the time
but we had our sync quickly.
Cards and little square board games
left bent on the floor among
beer bottles, porn, and his copy of
The English Lexicon.
Of course the women never came
But every night we practiced
quacking and gawking
as if through purple grass
they waded to us.

we fell in and out,
the nights blurred-overlapped;
dusted, familiar outlines.
life felt tired and I knew this—
giving up in the end
willing, for a simple existence,
something palatable.
we had that miserable understanding.

Simply,
I would have done anything to kill it,
and have lied down with it.
Blood-shot.
You were an invaluable friend
and in the coldest night, delicious
aside a carafe of pinot noir.