All night long, on all sides of the house, there ate large, black, invisible horses
grazing in the stubbled field. Their legs are tied. The sound of their hooves
moving across the dry sheaves, is the only living thing in the world.

In late autumn man bids farewell
to his best friend, and sets
his face against a background

Faring
and with a full tank:
                              past death regardless

All night, wind out of the Pentlands
around the chimney flue made sounds
like thunder, and I lay thick

I’ll quit smoking
as soon as I
get lung cancer.

I didn’t mean to quit drinking, 
it just sort of happened. 
I’d always assumed 

You haven’t texted
since Saturday,
when I read Keith Waldrop’s

and in the also silence
of justice as after      a rain a storm a hurricane

I notice its highest buds always leaf first
the serf twigs twisted and naked

The planets whirled across the blackboard all morning, 
Saturn with its twelve rings, Jupiter with its belts,
red Mars, green Venus, the familiar blue Earth
where we sat in that eighth-grade class learning light