Rabbit

Out walking along the canal by the natural gas station
and beneath the tracks to stand leaning, or to sit on that carp and cobweb pier
until a train passes overhead, water oscillant, air stenched with tie oil--
summer bore down weight and brought up despair like outfield dandelion

gone to seed. But not at night: at night, it's the gravel hills with the dog
let off its leash after a day on the chain, fairgrounds abandoned
in a sulfur cast (dust of sand and honey against the cement and aluminum
of city government buildings) or distant (out in the open) starbright

shadows in a ground of grass would move about to be wondered at
by Samurai first, sometimes: skull upon the girlfriend's shelf, above the bookmarks
of baby snakes. What is my soul in all this, but the smell of dog

and the skin of snake; the plash of carp bound turn to turn?
It was the mess of the hawk while living with the Woodard's--
the eyes both touched, and not memorized; an idiot by simple fact.