Grass slithers like a snake can make it do.
I’d throw my knife but I’d be scared to fetch
it back, and what it maybe might go hit.
And suddenly I’m crying
and I sink flat out down somewhere near the path
and the lavender I crush absorbs my tears
and Georgia red-clay blues hot-wire my brain.

Old songs I have not heard in twenty years
and some I never sang
ignite a welder’s torch between my ears.

The flame, too bright for conscience, channels webs
I spin each night with anybody’s legs
and God reclaims the Chevrolet Impala

and you say, ‘No, no, we were never pinned,’
and a paunchy self-assured grasshopper wearing
lime lime lime lime green
mounts the grass stalk by me, slowly turns his back,

and he and I watch as creation passes:
ants, black wasp, September afternoon.