1.
You, you remember
those earlier days
when you walked along
a more putrid river
surrounded
by chamomile and violets
where the moon
hung itself
in the trees.
The new moon became
the funeral
you walked into.
You dreamt many times.
2.
You remember how, once,
your legs somersaulted
without you,
as though filled with wind,
as if they
were predetermined
amputees.
You wandered into someone else’s backyard
without them,
as if it would help stop the bleeding,
as if it would somehow tell you
you have somewhere else to be.
And when you awoke,
you walked into a woman’s yard,
hanging laundry.
Admired
the childlike size of the clothes,
the smell after washing
still suggesting illness.
3.
The rain had pelted through
the scarecrow’s body,
limp on his pole.
She placed his clothes on the line,
she said, to keep them from molding –
(while the scarecrow lay limp
on the desert rock,
he with a torn mouth,
his body –
the tan-to-brown S shape
that then suggested
poisonous snakes.)