Altivolant

Muzzle flash paths a bullet through pith to pit, brain halved. In his hometown,

in a field, in brush with the scent of deer, surrounded by azaleas, we found him and slept

next to him. In moonlight we clutch his corpse. Get the birds. Get us in a grove

with nightjars to take him elsewhere, where no one else will see. Rename us: has-beens.

Protriptyline talked him out of his body. We search the gutfuls of dirt 
between us

and find an animal in amber. A pill. A casing. His bullet-brawn. Not him. His closed

casket closes our eyes to what he’d done to his body. We each have

two eyes toward the past, which turns away. Swing that world

dead ahead. Insomnia waits for us: wants to dream.